


Just Trust Me

by waywardriot



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: (eventually) - Freeform, Fluff, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, VanVen Week (Kingdom Hearts)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:28:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 20,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28223172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardriot/pseuds/waywardriot
Summary: The nature of starting to live a normal life is that Vanitas is constantly experiencing unfamiliar things. Over the months he's been at the Land of Departure, there's always been something new—and Ventus always plays a big part in that.For Vanven Week 2020!
Relationships: Vanitas/Ventus (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 83
Kudos: 113





	1. Warmth

**Author's Note:**

> hello everyone and here is my vanven week fic! i'm doing it a little differently this year, with it being one multichapter instead of multiple separate oneshots. as you can tell, the theme of this is ventus helping vanitas to experience new things, and this is intended to be happening over a long period of time.
> 
> the prompts i'm using are from [here](https://twitter.com/VanvenWeek/status/1323078124377198592?s=20), but i'm using the alternate prompts for the most part so it'll fit my Vision

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > Taking in a breath, he fully steps into the water and gradually sinks down until bubbles are lapping at his chin, his body entirely hidden. He closes his eyes, breathes in the smell of the product Ventus put in the water, and tries to relax.
>> 
>> “Okay,” he says once he’s adjusted. “I’m in.”
> 
> For the first time, Vanitas takes a bath. For the first time, Ventus sees parts of Vanitas that have been hidden for so long.
> 
> _Day 1: Warmth_

Huddled up in his bed, covered with blankets, Vanitas shivers, valiantly trying to withstand the cold air leaking through every crack in the castle.

The months he’s been at the Land of Departure so far have been a constant whirlwind of adjusting to new experiences. It was worst at the beginning when everything weighed him down with a burden different from any he’d held before, one he didn’t know how to carry. 

Now he’s finally covered the basics—sleeping in a bed, wearing actual clothes, interacting with people daily—but some things still frustrate him, like the awful cold that has been pervading the Land of Departure all winter. 

His way to cope has been simply smothering himself in blankets and various coverings, always discontent. Ventus keeps chiding him for _moping_ , but it’s not Vanitas’s fault that the climate of the Badlands was never like this. It’s Ventus’s fault for meddling. 

And Vanitas has no chance to avoid that meddling, closed doors never stopping Ventus forever. 

That means it’s frustrating but not all that surprising when Vanitas hears a knock on his door that afternoon while he’s hiding away in his room. “No,” he instantly calls out, but Ventus is already easing the door open.

As soon as he catches sight of Vanitas, the look on Ventus’s face turns sympathetic. “Cold again?” he asks.

“‘Again’ implies I ever stopped being cold,” Vanitas mutters from within his cocoon, giving Ventus a scathing look that means _get out_.

And of course, Ventus ignores that look. Instead, he hums and hesitates, looking like he has something to say. 

“What do you want,” Vanitas asks, closing his eyes with a sigh, because he knows there’s no getting out of this. 

“Hey, Vanitas,” Ventus finally says after a few moments, making Vanitas raise an eyebrow at him. “I was just wondering… have you had a bath here yet?”

Now suspicious of Ventus’s intentions, Vanitas sinks further into his blanket heap. “You’ve all forced me to take showers.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you were gross,” Ventus replies, as chipper as ever. “But you haven’t had a bath. They’re different. I think a bath instead of a shower would warm you up better.”

“Pass. I’m fine.”

The look Ventus gives him is so flat that Vanitas almost has to stifle a snort in his blankets. “I’m not stupid, Vanitas,” he says, which Vanitas doesn’t quite believe. “This isn’t my master plan to finally drown you. I’m just trying to help.” He pauses, then looks more tentative than exasperated. “You could let me wash your hair, too.”

“What.” Vanitas finally sits up and looks straight at Ventus. “Why.”

“Don’t look so surprised!” Ventus says with an indignant huff. “It’s just—your hair’s a wreck, Vanitas. I don’t know if you even wash it correctly when you do shower.”

Despite himself, Vanitas touches his hair, but that gives him no clarity on the situation. “It looks exactly like Sora’s.”

Rolling his eyes, Ventus shakes his head and sighs. “Just trust me,” he insists. “It’ll feel nice.”

Over the months, Vanitas has been allowing more and more physical contact. Now he doesn’t even instinctively flinch away from it most of the time (unless it’s sudden and unexpected)—but something about Ventus touching him always makes him feel a little odd. Like something is itching beneath his skin, begging to get out. It must be just because Ventus is the other half of his heart, though.

And, admittedly, it’s not bad, so maybe he’ll allow it this time. _Just_ because of the promise of warming up. 

He groans, hunching his shoulders forward. “Fine,” he says, getting out of bed with some amount of effort. He doesn’t want to leave his blankets behind, but he does, wrapping his arms around himself in a way that he’s sure looks pathetic.

Ventus perks up the same way he always does when Vanitas agrees to one of his inane requests. “Okay! Grab a change of clothes and then I’ll meet you in the bathroom.”

When Vanitas grunts his affirmation, Ventus heads out, and Vanitas sets to finding himself some clean clothes. Once he has them bundled in his arms, he goes to the bathroom, where he finds Ventus already setting things up, the water running in the detached bathtub as he waits for it to heat up.

“I’m just putting some stuff in the water. It should be relaxing,” Ventus explains as he plugs the tub up, the water quickly filling it as Ventus dumps something in it that makes it froth with bubbles. Vanitas isn’t quite sure about this, but he still stands there impassively, waiting for what to do next.

“Okay, so,” Ventus says, turning around once the tub is full, “now you can—”

Vanitas knows what comes next, so he immediately starts taking his clothes off, only looking up when Ventus makes a strange noise.

“Oh—okay,” Ventus says, his voice at a near squeak as he quickly turns around.

“What are you acting weird for?”

“I wasn’t expecting you to just—get naked like that!”

Vanitas looks down at himself and then back up. “We’re the same heart. It’s not a big deal.”

Ventus grumbles something under his breath, but Vanitas ignores him; he’s pretty used to Ventus acting strangely around him by now. With his clothes off, he carefully sticks one foot in the water, testing it first. It’s… odd. That’s the only way to describe it. He doesn’t remember having baths or showers before, so this might as well be the first time for him. Honestly, it’s rather daunting, but he’s not going to let himself be defeated by a goddamn bathtub. 

Taking in a breath, he fully steps into the water and gradually sinks down until bubbles are lapping at his chin, his body entirely hidden. He closes his eyes, breathes in the smell of the product Ventus put in the water, and tries to relax. 

“Okay,” he says once he’s adjusted. “I’m in.”

Ventus presumably turns around, coming to kneel at the head of the tub behind Vanitas. “What do you think?”

What does he think? Vanitas furrows his eyebrows and then shrugs, sinking a little lower. The bubbles tickle at his lower lip, and he blows them away. “It’s okay, I guess.”

“Good,” Ventus says, his voice full of warmth. “Um—I can leave you to soak, if you want. But I’m still willing to wash your hair.”

Vanitas knows he is; Ventus is always ready to touch him, to take care of him like something fragile. It’s gotten less overwhelming as the months tick by—and so Vanitas sighs. “You can stay,” he says, sitting up a little so that his shoulders are out of the water and exposed. “But don’t be weird about it.”

For some reason, Vanitas is met with a resounding silence instead of the typical retort from Ventus. The moments stretch out, painfully tense, and then the stillness is broken as Vanitas twists his upper body around to look at Ventus. 

“Oh,” Ventus says softly. “Vanitas.”

There’s an emotion in Ventus’s eyes that Vanitas can’t identify, both swimming and drowning. “What?” he asks, feeling defensive even without knowing what Ventus is thinking.

“I didn’t…” Ventus swallows and reaches out, and Vanitas flinches a little when he touches a particularly grievous scar on his back. “Your scars. I didn’t know they were so…”

Of course—Vanitas forgot that Ventus hasn’t seen these before. “Ugly,” he finishes for Ventus, his voice as flat as ever. He’s never particularly cared about the appearance of his scars, but he knows they’re objectively gruesome. Looking at them in the mirror doesn’t dredge up a single emotion for him, but he knows what they stand for all too well.

“No!”

The force with which Ventus protests genuinely catches Vanitas off guard, and he cocks his head in confusion. “It’s just—there’s so many of them. I didn’t realize,” Ventus explains, softer. 

“Of course there are. What, did you think Xehanort would actually heal me?”

Ventus remains silent, but the mistiness in his eyes speaks volumes. He looks downward for a few moments, and Vanitas thinks he’s about to give up and leave—but then Ventus looks up and touches that big scar again. Like before, Vanitas flinches, but the touch remains gentle, like Ventus always is with him. Usually he hates being treated like glass, but maybe it’s okay right now. The feeling in Vanitas’s chest is uncomfortable but not painful, so he doesn’t bat Ventus’s hand away like he usually would.

Ventus’s touch is careful, exploratory, as he traces the outline of the scar. The tip of his pointer finger gently brushes over the pitted skin, and then he lays his palm flat over it. These scars have never been touched so tenderly, and Vanitas doesn’t know what to make of it. Honestly? He’s petrified. He can no longer bear to look at Ventus, so he faces forward again, staring blankly at the window opposite him with its curtains drawn tight.

Ventus moves on to another scar, one that isn’t quite as grotesque as the other. As his fingers trail over it, Vanitas can feel his borrowed emotions rising higher and higher in his throat, and he has the sinking feeling that if he turns around, Ventus will finally be crying. His own vision is growing blurry, and he knows they’re in sync in as many ways as they are out of sync.

Vanitas closes his eyes and clenches his hands into fists where they’re resting underwater. He sucks in a sharp breath when Ventus’s other hand rests on his shoulder, but this time he doesn’t flinch.

Like that, Ventus meticulously goes over every exposed scar on Vanitas’s upper back and shoulders. By the end, Vanitas is almost shaking and not a single word has left his mouth. Then, Ventus transitions into rubbing his hands over Vanitas’s shoulders, firm but not enough to hurt. “You’re so tense,” he says, massaging one of the many knots.

“No shit,” Vanitas mutters, flexing his hands, which have grown stiff from how hard he’s been clenching them. How could he not be tense after having someone touch such vulnerable places?

Ventus hums in a way that means he understands what Vanitas isn’t saying; normally he hates when Ventus reads him like that, but it does have its benefits, since it means he doesn’t have to say the things he’s most afraid to.

A few more minutes pass by, Vanitas allowing Ventus to indulge himself in massaging his shoulders. This much touch would normally make him panic—it does have his chest feeling a little tight—but it’s indeed helping him relax. But that can’t last forever, though, so he eventually speaks up again. “I thought you were just here to wash my hair.”

“Oh,” Ventus says for what feels like the thousandth time, his thumbs stilling where they were kneading into the base of Vanitas’s neck. “Sorry. Guess I got a little distracted.” He lets go, and Vanitas feels both relieved and disappointed, though he doesn’t show it. “Okay. Duck your head underwater.”

Vanitas loathes being told what to do, but he knows he has to do this in order to have his hair washed, so he sinks all the way underwater, remaining there briefly to take in the feeling of the way the water dulls the rest of the world. He could really stay like that forever—if not for the fact that he needs oxygen like anyone else.

“There we go,” Ventus says once Vanitas emerges. “I almost thought you were—” He pauses and seems to think better of what he was saying. “Never mind.”

“Weird,” Vanitas says under his breath.

“Says you,” Ventus retorts. “Now close your eyes and tilt your head back.”

Again, though reluctant, Vanitas does as Ventus says. He still finds it somewhat tricky to comfortably close his eyes around other people, leaving him vulnerable to attack, but it’s manageable right now. He knows that he can absolutely take Ventus in hand-to-hand combat if it comes to that—and, admittedly, he’s feeling a little more relaxed. It’s a foreign sensation, but maybe this is what Ventus was talking about when he urged Vanitas to take a bath. 

While he grabs the shampoo bottle, Ventus places one hand on Vanitas’s head and then pauses. “Jeez, this is a lot of knots. Do you ever brush your hair after you shower?”

Vanitas stays silent, and Ventus laughs. “Hang on.” He gets up and Vanitas hears him over by the sink, and then he returns, steadying Vanitas’s head with his hand. “This might hurt,” he warns, and Vanitas grunts in reply.

Ventus hits a knot almost as soon as he places the comb in Vanitas’s hair, and Vanitas hisses. “Ow, asshole!”

“Don’t be a baby. I just told you it might hurt,” Ventus chides him. “I wouldn’t have to do this if you just brushed your hair.”

“What’s the point? It’ll stick up like this anyway.”

Even if Vanitas can’t see Ventus’s face, he knows without a doubt that he’s rolling his eyes. “Okay, well, I’m doing it anyway. Now stop complaining and let me.”

“Asshole,” Vanitas says again, but he lets Ventus continue anyway.

Ventus starts at the ends, slowly teasing out the knots as he works his way upwards on each section of his hair. It sort of stings like a bitch for Vanitas, but it does get better over time, and it becomes almost satisfying how easily the comb glides through his hair once a section is fixed. 

Even with the tugging, this action makes it even easier for Vanitas to slow down and relax, letting his mind go blank as Ventus carries on. And by the time Ventus finishes with his hair, carding his fingers through it one last time, Vanitas’s eyes have slipped closed. 

“Okay. I can actually wash it now,” Ventus says, a withheld laugh evident in his voice. 

“Whatever,” Vanitas mutters in response, leaning his head back into Ventus’s hands like a cat seeking affection. It’s embarrassing, but he can’t stop it, not when he’s relaxed in a way that he doesn’t often get.

The laugh comes out, but Ventus says nothing else as he squeezes shampoo into his hand and starts to knead it into Vanitas’s hair. Vanitas continues to grumble to himself, but he still closes his eyes and lets Ventus do what he wants.

The way Ventus washes Vanitas’s hair feels like such a contrast to the way he was just pulling on it to get all the knots out. Now, his fingers move carefully, and every so often he carefully wipes away the suds dripping down Vanitas’s face before they can get in his eyes. It isn’t just about the gentleness of the touch—it’s the consideration he puts into every motion, making sure this is a good experience. It almost leaves Vanitas’s head spinning, like so many of the things Ventus does.

There are a good few moments where he debates on the merits of drowning himself so he won’t have to deal with these feelings any longer, but unfortunately Ventus would pull him out of the water before he could die. Always meddling.

Eventually Ventus grabs a cup to pour water on his head and rinse out his hair several times, guiding Vanitas to lean his head back in his hands even further. Vanitas doesn’t open his eyes until he hears Ventus set the cup down, and then he finds himself staring directly up at him, Ventus’s expression warm.

“Okay. You’re all done,” Ventus says, his voice soft as he runs his hands down to Vanitas’s shoulders, gently rubbing his thumbs into the base of his neck. “Feel warmer?”

Vanitas hates admitting when Ventus is right, but he is. The warmth is unlike anything else he’s ever felt; he’s physically warm, but he also feels warm on the inside. It’s different, but not necessarily bad. “Yeah,” he finally says, lifting his head all the way back up. 

“Mmm. You’ve been in the bath for a while. You’re gonna be all wrinkly if you stay in there any longer,” Ventus teases.

However, Ventus makes no moves to let him get out of the tub, simply continuing to rub Vanitas’s muscles, his fingertips occasionally lingering over his scars once again. Vanitas would tell him to stop, but something inside won’t let him, so he only lifts his hands out of the water and stares at his now-wrinkled fingers. It’s a weird sensation, but no weirder than the rest of this, so he settles with it. 

Not forever, though. “The water’s cold,” he says after another minute or seven. 

“Oh.” Ventus finally lets go of him, and Vanitas curses the part of himself that misses the touch already. When did _he_ start _wanting_ Ventus to touch him? When did his skin stop aching when Ventus touched him and start tingling instead? 

Vanitas is, thankfully, knocked out of his thoughts when Ventus continues to speak. “Alright. I’ll leave so you can get dressed, then. I’ll be back in my room, so let me know if you need anything else.”

Ventus stands up and walks over to the sink to rinse his hands off before he heads to the door. He hesitates in front of it for just a second, and then he gives Vanitas one last smile as he steps out and closes the door behind him.

Vanitas almost wants to ask him to stay, but Ventus acted weird enough when he saw Vanitas naked the first time, so Vanitas says nothing as he goes. Once the door is closed, he heaves himself out of the bathtub and wraps a towel around himself.

After he’s dressed, he finds himself inexplicably staring into the mirror at his reflection, which is something he generally avoids. Running his fingers through his hair, he realizes that he can’t stop thinking about how Ventus’s fingers felt in his hair, slender and gentle and lingering with something he doesn’t understand. He knows those moments are going to be on his mind for a very long time. 

And, most embarrassingly, he realizes he wants it to happen again.


	2. Surprise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > Vanitas immediately wants to protest—he doesn’t _need_ a birthday at all and certainly not one that isn’t his and Ventus’s already—but something inside him keeps him from doing that. It almost makes him feel something, that they want him to have his own day. Not Ventus’s, not Sora’s, and not anyone else’s.
> 
> For the first time, Vanitas has his own birthday. For the first time, he and Ventus are together for it.
> 
> _Day 2: Surprise_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> give it up for day 2!!!
> 
> honestly this one does not stick to the prompt i chose super well LOL it was supposed to mostly be about the birthday party but then the second half came to me and i was like well i guess we're going to angst town. buckle up boys

What’s left of winter finally passes, and though Vanitas doesn’t ever really get used to the cold, he learns to tolerate it, with more baths taken to warm him up (though he tries to hide that from Ventus so that Ventus doesn’t get smug). He’s grateful when spring comes, the world waking back to life and warming up so that his joints don’t ache constantly. It lets him be outside more, where it’s less suffocating, and he continues to adjust to normal life. 

Ventus meddles just as much as before and remains annoying. At least Vanitas is learning how to deal with it more and more each day—or, rather, how to tune it out so that he doesn’t physically kick Ventus out of the vicinity of his room every time he comes near.

But today, Ventus has been even more irritating than usual, if that’s even possible. He usually flits around Vanitas a lot on a normal day, but he’s practically his shadow—how fucking _ironic_ —today, lurking behind him as he eats breakfast, standing over his shoulder as he brushes his teeth, pulling a chair closer as Vanitas tries to catnap in the library. Nothing has been able to get him to fuck off, so Vanitas has resigned himself to having a small fly buzzing about him all day.

But sometime early in the afternoon, Ventus disappears, and Vanitas thinks he’s finally going to get some peace and quiet so that he can doze off. Unfortunately, Ventus shows up again about fifteen minutes later, footsteps too loud as he scampers into the library. “Hey,” he announces. “Come with me.”

“Fuck off,” Vanitas says, not even opening his eyes.

A groan. “Vanitas, come on.” He comes closer, but Vanitas adamantly keeps his eyes closed. “I want to show you something.”

“What is it?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Then I’m not coming. Now get out.”

The groan is even longer this time. Vanitas would continue to ignore him, but he’s suddenly yanked out of his seat when Ventus grabs hold of his wrist and pulls him up.

“What the hell are you doing, Ventus?” Vanitas snaps, nearly falling over as Ventus starts to drag him out of the room. “I’m busy.”

“You literally aren’t,” Ventus counters without even looking back at him. “Just trust me! I need to show you this.”

Vanitas pulls at his wrist, but he’s honestly not trying as hard to break away as he could be—if he really didn’t want to go, there would be no way in hell Ventus and his twig arms could haul him out of there.

“Oh, god,” he mutters under his breath, catching up so that Ventus will stop yanking him along. His eyes are fixed on where Ventus’s small hand is looped around his wrist, and it’s all he can do to ignore the sparks underneath his skin, ones that keep showing up when they’re touching. At this point, he’s learned to stop questioning the warmth that blooms in his chest when this happens, figuring that it’s just some weird other half thing. It gives him a headache to think about it too much.

“So dramatic,” Ventus says, relentlessly cheerful. There’s almost a skip in his step.

“Fuck you,” Vanitas replies, which he knows proves Ventus’s point, but he can’t help it.

It’s incredibly aggravating, but he stops protesting and just follows, Ventus holding onto his wrist the whole time. Soon, they arrive at one of the bigger sitting rooms in the castle, and Vanitas’s incoming demand of _now what the hell is it_ dies down as he realizes that _everyone_ is there for some stupid reason. Always Sora, Xion, and Roxas—and then Terra and Aqua—and Kairi, Riku, Naminé, Lea, even Isa—it’s everyone.

“Surprise!” they all shout once Vanitas has seen them, not quite abrupt enough to make him flinch, but enough to leave him stunned.

For a few moments, Vanitas is speechless, blinking in shock before he swivels his head around like he’s searching for an explanation for this. “What?” he asks like an idiot.

“Happy birthday!” they chorus, and Ventus’s voice is the most cheerful of all. When he feels his hand being squeezed, Vanitas looks down to find that Ventus shifted his hold from his wrist to his hand at some point or another. Then Ventus drops it, and Vanitas adamantly ignores the flash of disappointment.

That doesn’t exactly make it make more sense to him, though. His brows draw together in confusion, and he looks to Ventus. “Wait, isn’t it Sora’s birthday today?”

“That’s tomorrow,” Ventus corrects him. “That would technically make your birthday tomorrow, too, but we wanted you to have your own day.” Sora nods enthusiastically, looking almost as excited as Ventus.

Vanitas immediately wants to protest—he doesn’t _need_ a birthday at all and certainly not one that isn’t his and Ventus’s already—but something inside him keeps him from doing that. It almost makes him feel something, that they want him to have his own day. Not Ventus’s, not Sora’s, and not anyone else’s.

That doesn’t change the fact that he thinks birthdays are still insufferably stupid and useless, but something in his chest twinges in a way that isn’t as easy to ignore as it once was. “I—”

“Just enjoy it,” Ventus encourages, taking Vanitas by the shoulders and nudging him forward like he’s trying to shove him into a lion’s den.

He might as well be, anyway, by how Vanitas is immediately swamped with people coming forward, Sora chattering in his ear, Roxas laughing at his still-shocked face, and others waiting their turn to greet him—it’s definitely overwhelming, but he thinks he can manage. At one time, Vanitas absolutely couldn’t, but now the attention is… not exactly good, but not exactly bad.

Once a very long set of greetings has been made, Vanitas is shepherded onto one of the couches in the room, sat straight in the middle with Ventus one on side and Xion on his other, everyone else shoving themselves in wherever they can fit. A cake is brought out and placed on the coffee table that’s almost touching his knees, and he stares down at it. Seventeen candles sit atop it, and Vanitas blows none of them out.

“Hey.” Ventus gently nudges him. “You’re supposed to blow them out.”

“I know what I’m supposed to do!” he says indignantly, giving Ventus a scathing look out of the corner of his eye. “I’m just… waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

“For you to stop it,” Vanitas hisses. Ventus only laughs.

In truth, Vanitas doesn’t know what it is he’s waiting for. Maybe he’s just… taking in the novelty of this moment, something he wouldn’t have imagined someone like him could get. But now that he thinks about it, it does make sense—there’s no way Ventus would forget about something like this, and neither would any of those who have gotten closer to Vanitas. 

“Okay,” he says, taking a deep breath in. When he leans forward, Ventus puts a hand on the small of his back, and that makes Vanitas want to lean back again so that he can take as much of that touch as he’s given.

Scowling at his own stupidity, he shakes his head and blows out the candles, each flame flickering out like he thought he once would’ve done.

But there’s no space in this room for thoughts that dark when everyone is so excited. It’s amazing how enthusiastic everyone in this room is about _his_ birthday, to the point that it might as well be their own birthdays too (well, it almost is, in Sora’s case). He rolls his eyes as people start jostling around, and eventually a slice of cake is shoved in his hand by any one of the people there. 

Vanitas eats his own birthday cake for the first time, and he’s given birthday gifts for the first time. Everything about the party is so thoughtful that it’s honestly almost annoying. Sometimes he wishes he were still like the old him, the him who would’ve turned around and left this room the moment he was brought in without a second thought, but instead he’s become someone who suffers through this kind of stuff. 

He doesn’t even tell anyone to fuck off. Who is he?

Then, after cake and presents, there are games and movies and lots and lots and _lots_ of talking. Vanitas doesn’t exactly have a lot of memories of birthday parties to go off of, but he didn’t expect it to be as long as this one is. Everyone is there for dinner, and then for hours after that, just enjoying the time where they’re all together in a group again. 

He’s pretty damn tired of it all—and just tired in general—by the end, so he’s grateful when people start to finally leave, all heading back to their respective worlds. The surprise of it all meant that he didn’t have the time to emotionally prepare for a day of interaction, so he feels thoroughly wrung out. 

Vanitas gets a few last ‘happy birthday’ wishes from everyone, and Sora makes sure to excitedly tell him, “I’ll see you tomorrow at _my_ party!” with a big smile on his face, like he knows exactly what he’s doing. He probably does. Vanitas just rolls his eyes and waves him off, and soon enough everyone who doesn’t already live at the castle is gone.

Ventus, Terra, and Aqua all do some cleaning while Vanitas goes to sit at the end of one of the couches, staring at the wall across him with its fireplace and clock overhead. The three others are laughing and talking, but Vanitas doesn’t even care to listen in—he’s too focused on the clock hands slowly ticking closer and closer to the next day. To _that_ day.

It’s approximately sixteen minutes and forty-seven seconds before Ventus speaks to him again, Terra and Aqua heading off to bed. “I put your gifts in your room, by the way,” he says, perching on the arm at the other end of the couch from Vanitas. “So how’d you like your birthday party?”

Vanitas shrugs, his eyes still fixed on the clock. “It was fine.”

“Yeah? You think so?” Ventus says, obviously happy that Vanitas deigned it _fine_. “I think it went pretty well, yeah. I was a little worried about the surprise bit, but that’s why we didn’t have everyone hide and jump out like most surprise parties.”

Vanitas grunts.

“Hey, are you even listening to me?”

Almost at the same moment Ventus speaks, the clock starts to chime, and Vanitas carefully counts each of the twelve rings in his head. “It’s past midnight,” he finally says. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Ventus’s back stiffen from where he’s sitting, and he knows Ventus knows what he’s talking about. “Yeah. It is,” Ventus says, solemn in a way he usually isn’t.

Another silence falls between them, but it’s not as uncomfortable as it once was—just weighted with the sentiment of this day. Finally, after another minute, Ventus speaks again. “Would you go back?” he asks. “Make sure it never happened?”

Not that long ago, the answer would’ve left Vanitas without hesitation, but this time, it lurks. It festers. It weighs heavy where it gets stuck somewhere between his throat and esophagus, and he has to pause and try to swallow it back down.

“I don’t know,” Vanitas finally says after another prolonged silence, so long that he’s surprised Ventus didn’t assume he was ignoring him and then leave. “I just don’t want it to hurt.”

Ventus laughs, a soft and strained sound. “Neither do I.” Another silence, then again: “That wasn’t a yes, was it?”

Vanitas purses his lips and looks over to Ventus, but he can’t manage the normal amount of vitriol he uses when Ventus asks some stupid question. “It’s an _‘I don’t know’_.”

Ventus smiles and looks at Vanitas, and then that smile grows bigger when he sees Vanitas is already looking at him. “Okay,” he says. “I don’t think I’d stop it. Not just because I like the me I am now, but… I like the you you’ve become, too.”

That’s sentimental enough to make Vanitas roll his eyes. “That makes one of us.”

Ventus’s laugh is less strained this time, the kind that lets Vanitas know that Ventus knew the answer he’d get. “Sorry. As hard as you try to get me to hate you, I’m not going to. I’ll still—” He shakes his head. “Never mind. But what I said is the truth for me.”

“You’re insufferable,” Vanitas says with a scoff.

“I’m right,” Ventus says matter-of-factly. He stretches his arms over his head, arching his back like a cat, and Vanitas can’t keep from following the line of his body with his eyes, so much leaner than his own. “Anyway, I knew you wouldn’t want to have a birthday on the actual day because—well, because of what it stands for.”

Vanitas is grateful for that, an emotion he’s still getting used to. The _thank you_ chokes in his throat. “Yeah,” is all he says, slumping back on the couch. 

“No problem,” Ventus says warmly, knowing what Vanitas can’t say. “I hope… one day you can see yourself the way I see you.”

“Stop being sappy.”

Ventus laughs and rubs the back of his head bashfully. “Sorry. It’s just the truth.”

“I’m going to throw up if you keep doing this.”

“Overdramatic,” Ventus mutters. “It’s the day we got torn apart. Can’t I be happy we’re together today for the first time, after sixteen years?”

Curling his hands into fists, Vanitas stares at the wall and swallows through a dry throat. He wants to reply that they’re not really together, not in the way he actually wants—but he can’t. Again, the words won’t come up no matter how much he wills them. Something is holding them just past his vocal cords, somewhere he can’t reach. 

So he just shrugs and says words he can reach. “Like I’m not just some virus here.”

“Vanitas.” Vanitas can tell just how offended Ventus is without even looking at him. “We want you here. We all do. It’s—”

“You think I don’t see the way Aqua looks at me when my back is turned?” he snaps; honestly, he’s not sure where this is coming from all of a sudden, but here it is. “You think I don’t see how Terra is constantly checking up on you when we’re together?”

There’s a tense silence, then the couch next to Vanitas dips down as Ventus comes to sit next to him. Vanitas still won’t look at him. “It’s—” Ventus tries again, and then he pauses. “It’s just hard sometimes, after everything. But they don’t—”

Again, Vanitas interrupts him. “They do mean it. And who can blame them? They’re right, after all. It was stupid to let someone who tried to erase your existence live in your home.”

“Vanitas.” Ventus sets his hand on Vanitas’s shoulder and then, when Vanitas doesn’t look at him, cups his cheek to turn his face towards him. Vanitas is so stunned by the tenderness of the gesture that he doesn’t even do anything. “That’s not it. You’ve really changed so much. I mean, back when you first came here, you probably would’ve punched me for touching your face.”

Ventus _is_ right on that count, if none other. Vanitas has very nearly punched Ventus purely on reflex an impressive amount of times. “What’s your point,” he says flatly.

Ventus groans and rolls his eyes, his hand still lingering on Vanitas’s face. “My _point_ ,” he says emphatically, “is that you’ve become someone really important to me. I mean, you’ve always been important because you’re part of my heart, but…” He seems to fumble with his words before he shakes his head. “I just can’t imagine not having you here now. I didn’t realize how wrong things felt without you until you were finally here.”

“Took you way too long to realize it.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Ventus drops his hand back down to his shoulder. “I know I don’t need you in the same way you need me, but I do need you.”

Honestly? Vanitas thinks that the way he needs Ventus has changed. His heart will always yearn to be one with Ventus again in the most literal way, but he just… needs Ventus near him. He thinks about the presence at his side, warm and bright even when he closes his eyes, and he realizes that the _I don’t know_ might actually just be a _no_.

“I know,” is all he can say.

“Good,” Ventus says, reaching up to brush some of Vanitas’s hair out of his face. Some of the strands have gotten long enough to stay tucked behind his ear, but Ventus still keeps his fingers there like they might come free again. “As long as you know.”

Vanitas closes his eyes and swallows when Ventus’s thumb lingers over the tip of his ear, his finger slightly calloused from years of his own training, even if it wasn’t as robust as Vanitas’s—yet that training never keeps him from handling Vanitas gently. 

“Okay,” Ventus says after a long silence. He carefully tucks another lock of hair away before he takes his hand back and stands up. “It’s late. We should get to bed.”

Vanitas gives an impassive hum and looks up to find that Ventus is holding a hand out to him. This isn’t the first time Ventus has offered him a hand while he’s been here—it also isn’t the tenth, or the twentieth, or even the hundredth—but somehow, it means more to Vanitas, on the anniversary of the day they were ripped from each other’s grasp in the most literal way.

Biting at the inside of his cheek, Vanitas gingerly takes his hand and stands up. Even once he’s helped him up, Ventus doesn’t drop his hand, instead keeping it clasped in his own as he pulls Vanitas out of the sitting room, almost the mirror image of when he was dragged here earlier that day.

The halls are quiet as they walk on, Ventus’s hand warm and reassuring in Vanitas’s, until they arrive first at Vanitas’s room. Their hands finally unlink as Ventus steps back and Vanitas opens the door, preparing to lock himself in and put this whole strange day behind him.

Something makes him hesitate in the doorway, though, and he turns to stare back at Ventus again. There are more words somewhere that he can’t reach, so he can only say the next ones that come to mind.

“Do I really have to go to Sora’s birthday party tomorrow?”

Ventus laughs, the precarious balance of the previous moments broken. “Yes, you do,” he says, obviously putting on his most innocent look. “Sora came today, so you have to go to his.”

There’s no escape, and Vanitas knows it. “Fine,” he sighs, stepping into his room and closing the door behind him before he can stay behind and say something even stupider. “You owe me.”

“Sure. Goodnight,” Ventus calls after him, and Vanitas stands with his back flat against the door as he listens to Ventus’s footsteps continue down the hallway.

“Night,” he finally replies into the dead silence, pushing himself off the door and heading for his bed.


	3. Flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > “You don’t have to be so rough,” Ventus says, a laugh in his voice. He reaches out, placing his hand over one of Vanitas’s like he keeps doing more and more, and guides him to smooth the dirt over the seeds more gently—it makes Vanitas's heart do something weird. “The flowers aren’t trying to hurt you.”
> 
> For the first time, Vanitas gardens. For the first time, Ventus helps him realize that he doesn't need to be limited.
> 
> _Day 3: Flowers_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 3! i don't have much to say about this one except i think it's soft

The first of spring trickles away, giving way to the middle. Vanitas continues to adjust to life, and things are getting calmer with each day as he settles into more of a routine. He’s learning things—things besides hurt and anger—and though it’s slow-going, he thinks he feels something growing. 

A couple of somethings, maybe. Something when he watches the Land of Departure turn greener than he’s ever seen, something when he sits down in the library with Aqua, and most of all, something when Ventus is around him. 

A lot of the time that something pertaining to Ventus is still annoyance, but it’s growing and changing everyday, just like Vanitas. 

It’s another bright spring day when Ventus comes to him while he’s sitting in the kitchen, absently staring out the window. Lost in thought, he doesn’t notice Ventus until he braces both hands on the table and leans his weight on them. “Hey. Help me with something?”

“What?” Vanitas asks—and even he’s surprised that he did instead of immediately outright rejecting Ventus’s request.

Ventus is grinning when Vanitas looks at him. “I want to plant some things.”

Vanitas frowns and shrugs, looking back out the window so he won’t be blinded by that smile. “Sounds boring.”

“You think everything sounds annoying or boring at first,” Ventus counters, which is objectively correct, as much as that irritates Vanitas. “I think you’ll get something out of this.”

“What am I going to get out of dumping some seeds in the ground?”

“Just trust me. Please?” Ventus says, and Vanitas knows he’s going to be using those pleading eyes if he looks at him. 

And Ventus certainly does, when Vanitas glances away from the window. “Fine,” he says after another drawn-out silence, pushing his chair back and standing up. “But I don’t see why you can’t do this yourself.”

“I could, yeah, but that’s no fun,” Ventus says, raising his eyebrows as he walks backwards out of the kitchen. “And I like doing things with you, Vanitas, in case you haven’t noticed by now.”

Vanitas scowls at him but still follows anyway. Of course he’s noticed that Ventus always seems content when they spend time together, but that doesn’t mean he understands why. It’s not like he’s pleasant company—he tries not to be so that people will leave him alone, in fact—but no matter how rude he is, Ventus keeps coming back. 

Even if he hates that, he’s grateful for it at the same time, because he doesn’t know what he’d do at this point if Ventus stopped being around him. Not that he’s going to say it, but he feels it. 

Ventus probably knows that he feels it, and that’s why he won’t leave him alone. The meddler. 

“Whatever,” he says, his arms folded as they continue to walk. 

Ventus laughs, looking like he’s floating on his feet. When they reach the front doors, he pushes one open with his shoulder and steps out, Vanitas following after.

The brightness of the sun immediately has Vanitas squinting, and he lifts a hand to his brow to shield his eyes. He no longer spends all day outside and no longer has a mask to dilute the sunshine, so it’s a little annoying. 

“Come on!” Ventus says, already walking across the courtyard. “Follow me.”

Vanitas still thinks the landscape of the Land of Departure is annoying bullshit. It’s hard to go on a walk here when you can daydream and accidentally fall over the edge. It doesn’t seem like a garden would fit well anywhere, but there’s a plot of dirt tucked out of the way, near one of the stone remains. “Aqua helped me till an area for it the other day,” Ventus explains once they’re standing in front of it; there are some packets of seeds and tools sitting next to it. 

“Till?”

“Like… get the ground ready for planting. We can’t just throw the seeds in the grass and expect them to grow,” Ventus explains, gesturing to the plot. 

Vanitas furrows his eyebrows and stares at the freshly overturned dirt. “Okay.”

Ventus smiles at him like he always does and then crouches down next to the patch of dirt, picking up the seeds. “I got a whole bunch of different stuff,” he explains, sifting through the packs in his hands. “Some vegetables and some stuff and some herbs—Aqua wanted those—but also some flowers and stuff. You wanna choose something to plant yourself? It’ll just be yours.”

“I don’t care,” Vanitas says—but he still finds himself crouching down despite himself, letting his knees rest in the grass as he stares down, more at Ventus’s hands than the actual seeds. 

“Just pick something,” Ventus gently encourages, passing them over to him. 

Vanitas still can’t really read the words all that well, so he just goes by the pictures. He doesn’t know why, but his eyes are drawn to the seeds of some sort of yellow flower more than anything else. He almost wants to not choose it because that’s fucking _ridiculous_ , but something compels him to. “This one.”

Ventus takes the packet from him. “Oh! Sunflowers,” he says. Vanitas holds his breath, waiting for some smartass comment about _Vanitas_ choosing _flowers_ , but it doesn’t come. “‘Kay. Here.”

Vanitas takes the trowel that’s handed to him and watches Ventus as he starts to dig a hole with his own trowel. This still feels incredibly useless to him, yet he follows suit. After a few moments, though, he casts the tool to the side and impulsively wiggles his fingers into the soft dirt instead. 

It’s not that he’s never felt dirt before, but not quite this intentionally—this mindfully. And here at the Land of Departure, the dirt is soft and a little damp. It’s not dry. It’s not unpleasant to touch. There’s _life_ here. 

There are only a few times Vanitas has felt stupider in his life. It’s just some dirt, for god’s sake. Never mind that the ground in the Badlands was dry and unyielding, not a single hint of life able to crack through the surface. He’s being ridiculous. 

“You okay?” Ventus asks, and Vanitas realizes he’s paused with his fingers just buried in the ground like an idiot. 

“I’m fine,” he says stiffly, yanking his hands away. 

He feels a strange twinge in Ventus’s chest but ignores it. Frowning, he busies himself with opening up the little packet instead, and Ventus does the same at his side. He ungracefully dumps some of the seeds in the hole and glares down at it, shoving some dirt over them. 

“You don’t have to be so rough,” Ventus says, a laugh in his voice. He reaches out, placing his hand over one of Vanitas’s like he keeps doing more and more, and guides him to smooth the dirt over the seeds more gently—it makes Vanitas's heart do something weird. “The flowers aren’t trying to hurt you.”

“I know that,” Vanitas snaps, though he lets Ventus nudge his hand. 

Once the hole is appropriately covered in dirt, Ventus pulls back and hands Vanitas more bags of seeds. “Okay. That one was all for you, so once you go ahead and plant as many of the sunflowers as you want, can you plant these, too?”

Vanitas looks at the packs in his hand, which seem to only be boring vegetables and herbs. He doesn’t particularly care about these, but Ventus asked, so he might as well do it. 

It’ll give him a little more excuse to stick his fingers in the dirt, at least. He knows that sounds weird, but it’s just another new thing he’s getting used to. A lot of the feelings relating to his new life don’t make any sense, so he lives with it. 

They set to planting the rest of the seeds, mostly things for Aqua. It’s more peaceful than Vanitas would’ve expected, and he finds himself eased by the monotonous actions and the light, almost inaudible humming coming from Ventus.

Finally, Ventus sits back on his haunches with a satisfied look on his face. “Alright! Thanks for helping me,” he says, smiling at Vanitas.

“Yeah.” Vanitas folds his arms over his knees and stares intently at the freshly overturned patches of dirt. “How long will it be until they do something?”

“Hm… Give it a week or two, I think?” Ventus answers. “Can you help me with watering them sometimes? They won’t sprout if we don’t take care of them.”

That’s such a simple request that Vanitas doesn’t really have a good reason to deny it—he ends up outside a lot normally, still not quite used to having walls around him and a roof overhead. “Yeah.”

Ventus beams at him, leaning over to jostle him with his shoulder. “Thanks. We’ll just water them now, and then we’ll be good for today.”

Vanitas watches as Ventus carefully waters each planted seed, feeling something inside him when the light hits Ventus’s hair just right. He wonders if the sunflowers will rival Ventus’s sunshine—so he can only wait to find out.  
  


* * *

  
About a week and a half later, Vanitas heads outside to go water the plants, the role Ventus has been pushing off on him entirely—he suspects that was the intention the whole time. It seems kind of useless to Vanitas, watering nothing but dirt—but now, finally, there are small sprouts sticking out, green and alive. 

Vanitas immediately squats down next to his sunflowers—when did he starting thinking about them as _his?_ —and sets the watering can to the side, reaching out to touch the dirt carefully. 

He feels his chest squeeze and thinks, _‘This is what Ventus meant by something, isn’t it?’_

Right now, he can barely put his thoughts into words. As he tries to puzzle it out, he sits down there next to the sprouts—and sits and sits and sits. He doesn’t realize how long he’s been out there until Ventus kneels down next to him and he suddenly realizes the sun is much lower in the sky. 

“You doing alright?” Ventus asks. “I saw you just sitting here through the window, so I came to check.”

Vanitas wants to say he’s fine, but he sort of isn’t. He’s not doing _bad_ , but he’s… something. 

He gestures lamely towards the small sprouts and shrugs. “They grew.”

“Yup. You took good care of them,” Ventus says, smiling warmly as he pats some of the dirt more snugly around a sprout. 

Vanitas clenches his hands into fists and considers just standing up and walking away without saying anything, but that will only make Ventus pester him to find out what’s on his mind. He can’t escape this. 

Sighing, he drags a hand through his hair and sinks down into the grass even further. “I did this with my own hands,” he says, and he despises how his voice wavers, betraying how much this is affecting him. It’s mortifying. 

Vanitas can feel the softness in Ventus’s heart and knows how fond the smile on his face must be without even turning his head to see it. “You did,” he says earnestly. When Vanitas sucks in a breath, Ventus leans into his side, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, and squeezes him. “You did.”

“I—” His hands squeeze even harder, and he forces himself to breathe out in the way he’s been taught. “My hands don’t need to only destroy.”

“They’ve never had to,” Ventus says. He releases Vanitas and takes one of his hands in both his own, still curled up. Slowly, carefully, he coaxes his fingers out of the fist until Vanitas’s hand lays flat again. “You’ve done a lot of fighting with these hands, yeah. But you’ve done other things with them now.”

Vanitas purses his lips and remains quiet. 

“You help Aqua bake,” Ventus continues on, “and you help with chores, and you’re learning to write. And…” Ventus closes one hand over Vanitas’s, winding their fingers together. “You can do this. And you won’t hurt me.”

It would be so easy to hurt him. Ventus seems so fragile, Vanitas could probably squeeze hard and somehow fracture some of the smaller bones in his hand, or he could yank it wrong and break his wrist like it’s nothing.

But Ventus is right—Vanitas isn’t going to. Instead, he’s transfixed by the sight; it isn’t like this is the first time he’s held his hand, but it’s the first time Ventus has tangled their fingers together like this. It’s the first time this has made him feel something exactly this acutely. 

When he looks at Ventus and sees the soft smile on his face, he knows he’s feeling the same thing, even if he doesn’t exactly understand what it is yet. But maybe one day he will. 

“I guess,” he replies. “But sometimes I still want to break things.” He pauses, knowing this will make him sound awful—especially next to someone as caring as Ventus. “...Cause hurt again.”

But instead of a disgusted reaction, he just gets Ventus squeezing his hand gently. “Me too,” he says, his voice low. “Sometimes I get so mad about everything that I just want to kick and scream and throw things at the wall. But you know what? I think that’s just human—the frustration and everything. What matters is that you _don’t_ do those things anymore, even if you want to.”

Vanitas doesn’t have an answer for that, because he still feels a sense of guilt for these destructive tendencies. Now, every time he thinks about punching someone, he feels like that’s a piece of Xehanort that got left behind in him—the one that taught him only to hurt and hurt until he got what he wanted. 

“It doesn’t make you a bad person,” Ventus urges, like he can read his thoughts. Leaning into him, their shoulders pressed together, he tightens his grip on Vanitas’s hand. “In fact, I think you’re great.”

“Because you’re blindly optimistic and wouldn’t know a threat if it punched you,” Vanitas says dryly. 

“Yeah, yeah.” Ventus rolls his eyes. “Doesn’t change the fact that you’re more than what Xehanort tried to make you. I’ll always believe that.”

How Ventus has such unfaltering belief in him, Vanitas doesn’t know. He still feels like he doesn’t deserve it, but like Ventus has said before—there’s nothing he can do to make Ventus hate him. If Ventus doesn’t hate him for sending him and his friends down dark paths, he won’t hate him for anything. Probably. 

“I know,” Vanitas says, shaking his head as he turns to look at Ventus fully, who does the same. 

With Ventus’s other cheek exposed, Vanitas notices that he got a smudge of dirt there sometime during the process of their conversation—probably wiped at his face errantly. Without even thinking it through, he lifts up his hand and cups Ventus’s cheek so he can brush it away with his thumb. 

Ventus looks ridiculously stunned by this action, his jaw hanging a little slack. “Vanitas?” he asks, his voice a little higher than usual, if only marginally—but enough for Vanitas to notice. 

Vanitas gives him a weird look but still brushes a little more dirt away. “Dirt. On your cheek,” he says like it’s self-explanatory, because to him it is.

“Oh. Dirt,” Ventus repeats. “Is it gone now?”

Vanitas looks at Ventus’s cheek, now clean, and hesitates. “No,” he lies. “Still there.”

Ventus doesn’t call his bluff, even though Vanitas was sure he would. All he says is, “Okay. Thanks.” 

It’s so subtle that he isn’t sure if it’s actually happening, but it seems that Ventus leans his head into his hand, looking like the cat that got the cream. His expression is so goofy that Vanitas can’t keep himself from laughing, and then Ventus is laughing too, definitely pressing into his hand now. Vanitas doesn’t move it, because it feels nice to have Ventus seeking this from him. He seeks a lot from Vanitas, emotions and actions and reactions, but this is something Vanitas can actually provide right now.

“You know, I think that’s the first time I’ve seen you laugh like that,” Ventus says once their laughter has died down. “It’s nice. You should do it more.”

Vanitas feels warmth blooming somewhere—it might be his stomach, or his chest, or maybe even his cheeks—which is part embarrassment and part something else. “Don’t make a big deal about it,” he says, finally dropping his hand. “I don’t know where it came from.” 

“From the heart,” Ventus replies, so earnest and cheesy that Vanitas almost cringes. “I’ll figure out where it came from and get more out. Don’t worry.”

“You’re making a big deal about it—” But Ventus disregards this as he stands and tugs Vanitas to his feet by his hands, taking rather than requesting. 

“Let’s head in. It’s getting dark and Aqua will be starting dinner soon.”

“Fine,” Vanitas says, if only because he _is_ getting hungry. Something about this whole afternoon has taken his energy, so he wants to cast it off as soon as possible. 

Ventus lets go of a hand—only one—and heads back to the castle, Vanitas at his side like his shadow, listening to his comforting humming. Vanitas casts one glance back at the sprouts, doing their best despite the odds.

From the dirt springs new life, and Vanitas wonders if he’s doing the same, Ventus tending to him and helping him turn into someone new.


	4. Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > Vanitas watches the way Ventus’s eyelashes fan across his cheeks and takes his own breath, in silent agreement with Ventus. The smell of the rain is something that nags at some lost memory, back from when they were still one—whenever that was—so it feels old and brand new at the same time.
> 
> For the first time, Vanitas just sits out in the rain. For the first time, Ventus helps him understand he doesn't have to do anything he doesn't want to.
> 
> _Day 4: Rain_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 4! this one gave me sooo much trouble y'all don't even know OTL
> 
> yes this implies the wizard of oz exists in the kingdom hearts universe. i don't take criticism

As spring carries on, it seems that things reach a stasis. Nature continues to progress to new months and the plants continue to grow, but there’s more of a routine at the Land of Departure now. Vanitas doesn’t keep such odd hours anymore, and so each day comes on an even path. Everyday there are chores and training and meals and conversations, and the stability is actually more comforting than stifling. 

But though it seems like not much is changing on the outside world, Vanitas knows it’s different inside. It’s not huge steps and strides forward, but a gradual ascent, almost unnoticeable until he realizes that he’s helping without question and willingly initiating conversations. The fact he’s changing—well, he doesn’t know how to react to that anymore. Some things are easier and some things are not, but at least it doesn’t always hurt for once. 

One of the more tangible changes is that it’s been raining a lot lately, and more than Vanitas expected, so much different from where he used to spend his life. Last week, Ventus told him that _April showers bring May flowers_ , and Vanitas told him that _it’s not even April anymore, idiot._ Ventus only laughed, the kind that makes Vanitas’s heart hurt in a way that actually doesn’t hurt.

His favorite place to watch the rain is curled up on a window seat in one of the libraries. Since it’s a habitual spot, it means that Ventus always knows where to find him on days like these—but that’s not as annoying as it used to be. It’s a little annoying when Ventus shows up only to talk his ear off about something one of his friends said or did, but Vanitas can suffer through it. Sometimes Ventus’s voice can be soft and pleasant, fading into the background of the rainfall, and that’s okay.

Today, it seems Ventus has come with a mission, though, as he pokes his head in the library with intention all over his expression. “Van?” 

“I told you to stop calling me that,” Vanitas says, his gaze still firmly fixed out the window.

“Can I ask you a question?” Ventus asks, completely ignoring what Vanitas said, of course. Vanitas doesn’t know why he bothers anymore.

“You just did.”

Ventus groans and waves a dismissive hand at him as he walks over and sits on the other end of the window seat, practically forcing Vanitas to look at him. “Have you ever just gone out in the rain?”

Vanitas gives him a strange look. “You’ve literally gone outside with me when it’s rained before.”

Again, Ventus groans, a pout on his face. “I don’t mean like _that_ ,” he says, shaking his head. “Not with an umbrella or anything. Just… being out there, you know?”

“And why would I go stand out there and get soaking wet like an idiot?” Vanitas asks, stretching out his legs in an attempt to take up more room and push Ventus off the window seat—and, of course, it doesn’t work.

“Because…” Ventus pauses, his brows furrowed, and then shrugs. “I can’t explain it. Just come with me, okay?”

“Aren’t you going to catch a cold if you go out there?”

Ventus scoffs, a sound more befitting of Vanitas. “Since when do _you_ think about stuff like that? I have enough of Aqua mothering me, so don’t you start too.”

Vanitas can’t help but make a face at being compared to Aqua, which might as well be a grievous offense, even if he and Aqua have reached some sort of a balance over time. “Shut up,” he says, but he still makes himself stand up. “Fine. Whatever.”

Grinning, Ventus bounces to his feet and takes his hand, an action Vanitas no longer questions. “Now quit with the pouting. Just trust me!”

Vanitas doesn’t know if he can yet call it trust, but he does know that Ventus has his best interests in mind in situations like these—he won’t pester Vanitas to do something unless he’s pretty sure that Vanitas will get something out of it. Or, at least, that he won’t hate it. Not that Vanitas will say that, though, because then Ventus will know how close of attention he pays to all of his actions.

“Fine,” he repeats, adjusting his grip on Ventus’s hand in a way he hopes is subtle, but he knows that’s failed when Ventus squeezes his hand in return. Well, whatever—as long as Ventus isn’t making any smart comments about the way Vanitas seeks out his palm.

They trek through the castle until they reach the front doors, and Ventus pushes them open and takes in a deep breath. “I love that smell,” he says, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment.

Vanitas watches the way Ventus’s eyelashes fan across his cheeks and takes his own breath, in silent agreement with Ventus. The smell of the rain is something that nags at some lost memory, back from when they were still one—whenever that was—so it feels old and brand new at the same time. It’s calming.

Then, Ventus fully steps outside, but Vanitas hesitates in the doorway, skeptically watching the rain fall from the clouds. “Oh, come on,” Ventus says to him, obviously exasperated. “You’re not the Wicked Witch of the West. The rain isn’t going to melt you.”

“What the hell are you on about?” Vanitas snaps.

“Oh, nothing.” Ventus looks far too satisfied, amused by his own (what Vanitas assumes is a) joke. “Just stop being a spoilsport and get out here!”

Still grumbling, Vanitas reluctantly steps out into the rain, making sure the castle doors are closed behind him. He looks up at the sky and squints as rain splatters against his face. “What’s the point of this?”

“Hm…” Ventus hums in thought as he looks up at the sky as well, and Vanitas has a feeling he’s searching for something that’s not related to this conversation. “There is no point. Sometimes you can just do something because you want to.”

This isn’t the first time that someone has tried to teach Vanitas this particular lesson, but it’s never quite gotten through his head. The bulk of his existence was hyper-focused on a singular goal, and every second of every day for years was spent preparing to achieve that goal. All that pain was in preparation for the final fight, and it’s hard for him to comprehend that there are no fights anymore. That he doesn’t need to be doing something at all times.

Taking a bath to warm up or growing plants to provide food? That makes some sense. Having a party to have fun or standing in the rain because it feels nice? Not so much… yet he’s let Ventus coax him into doing each of these things.

“Sounds stupid,” is all he can say to encapsulate those feelings.

Ventus gives him a pointed look and then rolls his eyes, shaking his head like he’s not used to this by now. “Like I’ve said, you think literally everything I want to do with you is stupid at first. And then you always end up enjoying it.”

Vanitas bites down his typical defensive response—he knows Ventus is right about him eventually enjoying things, and Ventus knows Vanitas knows. 

“Anyway! Let’s go,” Ventus urges before Vanitas can speak again. “I want to go check on the plants.”

Well, it’s not like Vanitas has much of a choice in the matter, not when Ventus has already grabbed his hand once more and is pulling him across the forecourt. The tile is slick beneath their feet and Vanitas nearly slips, but Ventus’s grip keeps him from falling like he’s done many times now.

When they reach the area where the plot of dirt is, it’s still not raining very hard, but Vanitas is starting to feel drenched. He’s quickly discovering that wet clothes aren’t a very pleasant feeling—one of the negative things he’s going to have to get adjusted to, he supposes. 

The plants are now much taller, some of them now looking more like plants than pathetic little sprouts. The sunflowers haven’t yet bloomed and won’t for some time, but they stand upright more and more with each day. Vanitas would maybe be proud, if not for the fact that they’re just stupid flowers and he’s not the kind of person who thinks that way.

“Look at how big they’re getting! You’re good with plants,” Ventus says—and okay, maybe Vanitas is that kind of person.

Vanitas only hums so he won’t give away what he’s feeling, staring at the plants for another few moments before he goes to sit on one of the stone walls. Neither him nor Ventus lets go, so soon they’re both sitting there, hands clasped between them. And now Vanitas can really process the feeling of the rain on his skin, making his bangs stick to his forehead. 

In theory, this seems like it shouldn’t be that much different from a shower (bar the fact that he’s wearing clothes right now), but it’s actually a lot different. It’s cleansing, but in an entirely new way. 

In the Badlands, rain never fell. There was no end to the dryness that cracked Vanitas’s lips and got into his mouth—that was part of his life that he’d just accepted. But sitting here, slowly being soaked, he realizes again how different his life is now. It’s not constant discomfort and loneliness; it’s the soothing feeling of rain on his skin and Ventus always at his side. The air is cold, but Ventus is warm—his hand is warm, his smile is warm, his heart is warm. 

Closing his eyes, Vanitas breathes in the smell of the rain washing things away, breathes in the stillness of the moment as they both sit there and contemplate. 

“It probably sounds kind of lame, but I’ve sat out here and cried in the rain a few times before,” Ventus says out of the blue after a few minutes of silence. “Sometimes I was just being dumb and I was crying over Terra or Aqua scolding me. But sometimes it was over how trapped I felt. Or I was remembering something that I couldn’t actually remember.”

Ventus has told Vanitas a lot of things about himself over time, but this doesn’t feel like the others, and Vanitas isn’t sure why. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I don’t really know,” Ventus answers, kicking his heels back against the wall they’re sitting on. “I guess… I just want you to know things about me, too. I trust you.” He smiles, a little unsure, but Vanitas knows that Ventus isn’t unsure about whether or not he trusts Vanitas—he’s unsure about Vanitas’s reaction to that. 

“Okay,” Vanitas says for lack of a better response. Then, because he feels like he needs to divulge something in return, he blurts out, “Xehanort would hate that I’m doing this.”

Ventus looks at him, brows pinched together, the same expression he always gets when Vanitas speaks of Xehanort. For a few moments, Vanitas worries that he shouldn’t have mentioned Xehanort and just kept it locked up in his head, but Ventus only squeezes his hand and looks determined. 

“Xehanort is stupid,” Ventus says bluntly, actually making Vanitas snort. “It’s not useless. Sure, maybe sitting out in the rain isn’t working towards a goal, but... if it makes you feel something, then it’s worth it.”

Vanitas hums, dropping his gaze to their hands on the wall between them. “I don’t know what I’m feeling,” he admits, because he really doesn’t—before, he could neatly categorize his emotions according to how they sprung out of the ground, but now there are too many varied ones for him to keep track. 

“That’s okay. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m feeling,” Ventus says as he scoots closer, close enough that their shoulders are pressed together and their intertwined hands have to rest on their thighs. “But being out here isn’t making you feel bad, right? You don’t hate it?”

Ventus’s tone is cautious, genuinely unsure of Vanitas’s feelings, it seems. And somehow, Vanitas knows that he has to tell the truth right now for both of their sakes. “I don’t,” he says after a pause. “I just… at the back of my head, it feels like I’m doing something wrong.”

Ventus leans his head on his shoulder and gives a hum of understanding. “We just need to teach that part of your head that this is okay. You’re not doing anything wrong by existing.” 

“You’re in for a lot of work,” Vanitas says, turning his head so that his cheek is pressed to Ventus’s hair. “I don’t know what damage can be undone.”

“All of it.” The determination in Ventus’s voice is palpable, and it makes Vanitas feel something to know that Ventus wants to help him so fiercely. After so long on his own, he needs that more than anything. “I don’t care how much Xehanort tried to control you. He doesn’t have a claim to your heart. No one does.”

“You do.”

Ventus laughs, nuzzling more into Vanitas’s shoulder. Vanitas can feel the warmth in his chest, strong enough to shelter both of them. “Not really. You’re close to my heart and we’ll always be connected, but… you’re your own person now. You’re independent from me.”

At one time, Vanitas would’ve loathed that assertion. It still nags at a tiny piece of him, but he knows that Ventus is right—they’re so different now, with different tastes and different hobbies and different relationships. Some days Vanitas still feels like a fragment, but Ventus is helping piece him together. 

“So you don’t have to follow orders like Xehanort made you,” Ventus continues, his voice softer, as he delicately swipes his thumb over the back of Vanitas’s hand. “You don’t have to do anything just because someone wants you to.”

“But I keep doing what you want me to.”

“That,” Ventus says, “is because you are a sap.” Even with Ventus’s head against his shoulder, Vanitas knows that Ventus has a grin on his face. 

“I’ll push you off this damn wall, Ventus,” Vanitas deadpans, though he makes no motions to do so—which more or less proves Ventus’s point. 

“Okay, Vanitas.” Ventus is obviously about three seconds away from bursting into laughter, so Vanitas shoves at his shoulder. “Hey! Don’t be a jerk!” Ventus says, pulling his head up so he can pout at Vanitas. 

“You’re barking up the wrong tree,” Vanitas replies, shaking his head. 

Ventus sticks his tongue out at Vanitas and then wipes his bangs out of his face, his hair drooping sadly. “Okay, I’m getting a little cold. We should probably go get dried off before—”

And right as he says that, as if nature is punishing him for speaking, it starts to pour, the rain pelting down so heavily that they can barely see. “What the hell!” Vanitas exclaims, jumping off the wall, and Ventus nearly topples off behind him, only managing to untangle their fingers just in time. 

Instead of a cry of dismay like Vanitas would expect, Ventus just bursts into laughter, hopping off the wall as well. He slips and nearly tumbles, and Vanitas finds himself catching him before he’s even thought about moving. 

Ventus clings onto his arms and desperately tries to get his feet under himself again, though that’s made difficult by him still laughing. “I’m sorry!” he says, snorting. “I didn’t know it was going to pour like this!”

“For some reason, I don’t believe that,” Vanitas says flatly, hauling Ventus back up to his feet. Ventus only giggles, closer than ever, and doesn’t let go of his arms. 

But as cranky as Vanitas acts—there’s just something about seeing Ventus like this, bright-eyed and smiling like he just got the best news of his life, only breaths away from Vanitas’s face. There’s not quite a smile on Vanitas’s lips, but it’s not a frown, and that says quite a bit. 

“See?” Ventus says, annoyingly able to decipher the look on Vanitas’s face. He slides his grip on Vanitas’s arms down to his hands, holding both of them, and starts to spin around. “I told you it’d be a good time!”

Vanitas lets out an undignified noise and almost slips, with no choice but to let Ventus spin the two of them. “Your definition of a good time is weird,” he says, having to be loud in order to be heard over the rain. 

“What?” Ventus says, and Vanitas knows he heard him. The sweet smile on his face is now mischievous, and it makes something that isn’t annoyance burn in Vanitas’s chest. 

Ventus continues to spin around, and it could almost be called a dance if it weren’t so sloppy and uncoordinated. Vanitas can’t bring himself to pull away, so he just puts up with it until Ventus is practically collapsing in his arms from dizziness. 

“Okay,” Ventus says, out of breath, though that doesn’t stop the smile on his face. “You’re smiling. That’s what I wanted.”

Vanitas makes an attempt to turn his traitorous lips into a scowl, but he knows it doesn’t work all that well. “Yeah, yeah. Come on, idiot,” he says, steadying Ventus with an arm around his waist. “You’re really going to get sick now.”

“I don’t care,” Ventus proclaims as he lets Vanitas tug him away, the opposite of earlier. “That was worth it.” He nudges Vanitas with his hip, and Vanitas nudges back, rolling his eyes. 

“We’ll see if you still think that when you wake up with a cough,” Vanitas says dryly. It’ll be annoying to deal with Ventus whining for days—but maybe Ventus is on to something when he says that was worth it. 

Even with his clothes sticking to his skin and hair plastered to his face, Vanitas feels content. Fulfilled. Like another weight was taken off his chest, the boy beside him the one who really helped to lift it up. Little by little, it comes and it goes. 

Ventus laughs loudly, happily, and leans almost his whole weight into Vanitas. Vanitas almost topples over, but all he can do is laugh and continue to support his weight as Ventus has done many a time.


	5. Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > “The sky’s so clear tonight,” Ventus says, his eyes trained upwards as soon as Vanitas is settled beside him. 
>> 
>> Vanitas gives a hum of agreement, but he isn’t even looking at the stars just yet. His gaze, as always, is fixed on Ventus, on the way the stars shine in his eyes like that’s where they actually belong.
> 
> For the first time, Vanitas and Ventus watch the stars together. For the first time, Vanitas wholeheartedly accepts comfort.
> 
> _Day 5: Stars_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> merry christmas here is some FLUFF
> 
> this chapter is a bit shorter than others but it's a holiday and i'm tired so here it is

The cycle of seasons remains constant, spring soon turning over into summer. The Land of Departure isn’t unbearably hot by any means, and it’s closer to the temperature range Vanitas is used to—so he doesn’t hate summer. Life continues the same in most ways, though Vanitas is pushed into activities and interactions more often. With the summer comes visitors and all sorts of neverending noise. 

And, though he may not say it out loud, things are peaceful with Ventus. He always drags Vanitas off to do things, but Vanitas doesn’t mind it so much as he used to—though he’ll always be a little difficult about it because it’s fun to make Ventus pout and get frustrated. The comfort is a smooth progression as they always seek each other out, not even thinking about it until their hands are already together.

Some days, Vanitas has to sit down and try to process all the feelings that keep developing. He thinks he’s close to putting a name to them, but thinking about it for too long gives him a headache, so he doesn’t push it. He just takes what comes to him, in both its annoyance and reassurance.

On a warm night, Ventus comes to Vanitas as Vanitas lays in his bed, eyes closed and attempting to drift off. He knows Ventus’s knock like the back of his hand, so he doesn’t even need to open his eyes as Ventus walks in. “Ventus,” is all he says—is all he needs to say. 

“Vanitas,” Ventus says in the same tone, the sound of his footsteps coming closer before the end of Vanitas’s mattress dips under his weight. “I can’t sleep. Come look at the stars with me?”

Vanitas cracks one eye open to see Ventus looking hopeful—he’s even gone so far as to bring a blanket for them to lay on while they stargaze outside, draped over his lap. Closing his eyes again, Vanitas thinks about the softness of his bed and the comfort of his blankets… and then he also thinks about the softness of Ventus’s hand and the comfort of his grip.

Alright. Vanitas sits up and languidly stretches, wondering whether or not the feeling of Ventus’s eyes on him is real. “You could look at them alone,” he says, as if he isn’t already slinging his legs over the side of his bed and standing up.

“Sure, but I want to watch the stars with you,” Ventus says simply.

Wrinkling his nose, Vanitas grabs his shoes and puts them on, jerking his head towards the door. “Let’s go, then.”

Ventus beams at him, the sun out at night. Once he’s shifted the blanket in his arms over the crook of one elbow, he takes Vanitas’s hand, and then they’re off, their footsteps echoing in the sleeping castle.

As they finally reach the summit, it’s dark and still. Ventus carefully lays out the blanket and then sits down on it, legs criss-crossed, and looks at Vanitas expectantly. Vanitas doesn’t hesitate before he sits down next to him, leaning back on his hands with his legs splayed out in front of him.

This isn’t the first time Vanitas has sat and watched the stars—but it is the first time he’s doing it with Ventus, and the first time he’s doing it mindfully. This is different than sitting alone in the desert and glaring up at Ventus’s star with nothing on his mind except vengeance. Now that need for vengeance has faded, and there’s no place that Vanitas would rather be than right there.

Well, maybe in bed asleep. But still, he’s here and that’s what matters.

“The sky’s so clear tonight,” Ventus says, his eyes trained upwards as soon as Vanitas is settled beside him. 

Vanitas gives a hum of agreement, but he isn’t even looking at the stars just yet. His gaze, as always, is fixed on Ventus, on the way the stars shine in his eyes like that’s where they actually belong.

It takes about three seconds for it to occur to Vanitas that those thoughts are disgustingly sentimental, so he forces himself to tear his eyes away and look up. Ventus is right, though—it’s a beautiful night, perfect for them to sit out here. The sky isn’t obscured by dust that gets into Vanitas’s eyes for once, instead open for anyone to observe it.

The stars out here are different from the Badlands, and it’s both unsettling and reassuring. He practically mapped out the sky over the seasons, knowing exactly how the planets and constellations moved, but everything is a little different out here. At the same time, the new perspective assures him—reminds him that he’s no longer trapped in the desert. His North star is no longer up there, but instead it sits beside him, carefully tracing lines in the sky with his pointer finger.

“I watched the stars a lot when I was out there,” Vanitas says after a few moments of silence—silence that didn’t need to be filled, but he’s doing so anyway. “The only thing to do in the Badlands besides train was sleep, and I usually couldn’t sleep, so”—he gestures upwards—“this is what I did.”

Vanitas can feel the ache in Ventus’s heart as he thinks about how lonely Vanitas was out there. “I did this a lot, too,” Ventus says, shifting closer. “I mean—I have the telescope in my room, so you know that, but—” He shakes his head and laughs at himself. “I always watched them and felt like there was something more out there for me. I didn’t know what, but I’d think about all the times that Terra and Aqua got to go off-world for missions, and I hoped that’d be me one day…”

“Was it worth it to leave this world even with everything that happened?” Vanitas asks, turning his eyes to Ventus again.

“It was,” Ventus replies without hesitation. “I’d do it all again to save everyone. Especially you.” There’s a determined glint in his eyes when they meet Vanitas’s, and Vanitas feels some part of him swooping that shouldn’t be doing so. “And y’know—a lot of that call _was_ because I wanted to go out and explore, but now I know that I was being called back to you, too. Even if I didn’t know it, my heart remembered you.”

Curling his fingers into the blanket beneath them, Vanitas closes his eyes and swallows. He spent all those years longing for Ventus, wishing that he’d want him in the same way that Vanitas wanted him—and now he knows that it was reciprocal, even if neither of them knew it. Knowing their connection goes both ways more than he’d initially thought fills him with warmth.

“There were so many stars up there, but I still knew exactly which one was you,” Vanitas says. “You just… shone brighter than the rest.”

That little time where Ventus’s heart was asleep and Vanitas’s was awake—looking up at the sky always gave him a little anxiety, since he couldn’t see Ventus’s star where it was supposed to be, always shining. 

“That’s kinda cheesy.” Ventus playfully bumps him with his shoulder.

“No, it’s not,” Vanitas says, offended, and he bumps Ventus back a little more sharply. “It’s the truth. You know how strong your light is.”

Ventus hums and holds one hand to his heart, looking down at his lap. “Everyone says that, but I’m not sure how true it is. All those years where we were apart—my heart knew deep down that something was wrong. That something was missing. Sometimes I felt so sad and lost, I don’t know how that could be light.”

Vanitas can’t help but scoff and roll his eyes. “You’re so pure. I don’t expect you to understand.”

“Hey!” Ventus sits up straight and glares at him. “Don’t be a jerk! It’s not my fault light and darkness are so confusing.”

Chuckling, Vanitas waves a dismissive hand at him. “Well, the point is that I could always see your light. It made me so damn angry that I just wanted to…” Thinking about how full of hate and rage he’d been back in those days makes him hurt all over again. Now, he has no idea how he encapsulated so much negativity without falling apart (well, he was nearly there, but besides).

“I know,” Ventus says softly, “and I’m sorry. I know I’ve said it before and it doesn’t fix anything, but I am. I wish things had been fair.” He reaches up into the sky and closes his fist around a handful of stars. “And… I wish I had known which star was you. Maybe I would’ve found you sooner.”

Vanitas shrugs, leaning back on his hands once again. “I wouldn’t have had a star,” he says. “I don’t have any light in my heart. There would’ve been nothing to shine.”

Ventus drops his hand and quickly turns to face Vanitas, a pained look on his face. “You don’t still believe that, do you? There’s light in there, I know it. Why else would you have fun when we do things together?”

Vanitas could debate Ventus’s definition of fun, but he doesn’t exactly have the energy to. “Maybe it’s not always screaming, but I think the anger and sadness still control me. It’s just...” Grief rises in his throat, and he shakes his head. “Sometimes it’s all not enough. Even after all this time.”

“What’s not enough?” Ventus asks softly. 

“Just—I missed you so much. I can still feel the ache in my chest even when you’re right there,” Vanitas says, forcing himself to look away from Ventus. “What if I’m never satisfied?”

Mortifyingly, he feels heat stinging at his eyes, the emotions begging to be let out somehow when the Unversed aren’t being released anymore to ease the pain.

“I know you can get there, Vanitas.” Ventus stands up on his knees and moves closer, until they’re right next to each other. “It’s getting easier everyday, isn’t it? So it’s not hopeless.”

Vanitas wants to believe Ventus—wants to have hope—but it’s hard. These positive feelings are going against his very nature, and at times it’s easier to give in to despair.

“I missed you so badly,” Vanitas says, choking out the words. He wraps his arms around himself, fingers digging into his sleeves, and shakes his head. “All the time. I thought it was because I hated you, but—it was because I missed you. So much it hurt.”

The hollow feeling in his chest isn’t enough to mask the hurt Ventus is feeling now, and Vanitas just—he can’t. “It was all I could think about all the goddamn time. I would’ve done _anything_ to make it stop.”

Then, Vanitas is a little surprised yet entirely not when Ventus leans in to wrap an arm around his shoulders, pulling him closer than ever. When Vanitas sucks a sharp breath in, Ventus then wraps his other arm around him to urge him to turn towards him. Vanitas has been hugged before several times, but right now, it feels more like a lifeline than affection. 

“I know. But I’m here now,” Ventus says, hushed like a secret all for Vanitas.

Vanitas remains stiff for only a split second before he melts into Ventus’s hold, slumping against him because he knows Ventus will catch him. As he turns his body towards him, the position is awkward with their legs crammed together, but he can’t be bothered to resituate right now, not when Ventus is offering him something he so desperately needs.

“Stay,” Vanitas whispers, loosely wrapping his arms around Ventus’s waist and holding onto the back of his shirt.

“I will. I’ve got you, Vanitas,” Ventus murmurs back. He shifts to get them more comfortable, and Vanitas has to force himself to swallow down a keen when Ventus nearly pulls away. It’s better, though, when he settles back down and they can now be even closer. “Now and forever. I promise.”

“Okay,” Vanitas breathes out. “I trust you.”

When Ventus presses his face into Vanitas’s hair, Vanitas can feel the fond smile on his lips. One hand cups the back of his neck and the other sweeps up and down his back, careful and methodical. “Thank you,” Ventus says, perhaps the most heartfelt Vanitas has ever heard him.

On impulse, Vanitas lets go of Ventus’s shirt with one hand and instead places it on Ventus’s heart. The beat is steady beneath his palm, and it soothes him to know that the other half of his heart is right here, safe and protected.

Ventus laughs and the smile grows bigger. “It beats because of you,” he says, squeezing Vanitas closer. It might be disgustingly sentimental, but it still makes warmth flood his body from his head to his toes, pleasant and heart-pounding and exactly what he wants.

“And mine for you,” he answers, so quiet that he doesn’t know if Ventus even heard it. But if Ventus didn’t hear it, Vanitas knows that Ventus can feel what he means, in touch with Vanitas’s emotions in ways that defy sense.

“Okay, gimme a second. No complaining,” Ventus says, and Vanitas bites his tongue.

Ventus lets go of Vanitas just long enough to lay down flat on the blanket, and then he pulls him back in. Vanitas tucks into his side like that’s where he belongs, placing his head on Ventus’s chest. Ventus wraps one arm back around his shoulders and his other hand reaches for the one Vanitas has placed on his chest as well, curling it over Vanitas’s. It’s almost too cozy, and Vanitas doesn’t dare move in case he disturbs this moment so much it gets ruined.

The beat of Ventus’s heart fades out the sound of bugs chirping in the background, and it becomes all Vanitas is aware of. He forgets about the stars in the sky and the gentle brush of wind, all those things irrelevant right now.

“I’ll stay,” Ventus promises again, trailing his hand up and down Vanitas’s back continuously. “I’ll stay even if you don’t.”

“I will.” 

Vanitas closes his eyes, and Ventus tightens his grip on his hand as they fall into silence.

When Ventus stops rubbing his back, Vanitas lifts up slightly to see Ventus’s sleeping face, eyelashes fanning over his cheeks and lips slightly parted. This isn’t the first time Vanitas has seen Ventus sleep, but never has he seen it this peaceful—Ventus is peaceful with him. Because of him.

Letting out a careful breath, Vanitas squeezes Ventus’s hand even if he can’t squeeze back and settles down in place again. Ventus’s chest rises and falls evenly beneath his head, his heartbeat slow and steady, and it takes no time to pull Vanitas down as well.

That night, he doesn’t dream—what he’s always dreamt for is right here, so nothing else needs to await him in his head.


	6. Vacation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > The water is cold on his feet, the sun warm on his skin. The sounds of flowing water, seagulls overhead, and people quietly talking wash over him. Ventus is quiet at his side, and Vanitas wonders if all of this makes him feel the same way. He hopes it does.
> 
> For the first time, Vanitas goes on a trip just for fun. For the first time, he feels almost normal with Ventus beside him.
> 
> _Day 6: Vacation_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day 6! this one was also a little tricky and more lighthearted. i hope y'all are ready for what comes tomorrow :3c

Like all other seasons at the Land of Departure, summer continues on at an even pace. There isn’t anything particularly exceptional about it, but that’s been fine with Vanitas for the most part. There are times it gets a little monotonous, but there’s always something to do when compared to the Badlands, so a little bit of boredom is nothing to him now. He’s content to spend his days training, keeping up with lessons, and helping out with various tasks.

And, of course, there’s always Ventus to hang out with and sometimes other people coming to see them, either for training purposes or just to visit for the sake of it. It seems that those who have decided to attend school get a break during late summer, so many of them spend time together on one world or another.

This time, Ventus’s request is a little different from the others in how much it requires of Vanitas and for how long. Ventus comes to him when Vanitas is laying down outside, watching the clouds pass by as he enjoys the warmth of the grass below him. “So,” Ventus says casually, laying down right next to Vanitas, “me and Aqua and Terra are planning to go on vacation, and we want you to come with us.”

Vanitas tilts his head to get a look at Ventus, a confused look on his face. “What? Why?”

“Well, we just want a break for a little! We won’t be training or doing chores or anything like that,” Ventus explains. “And of course we want you to come with us.”

Something like that leaves several questions for Vanitas, who hardly even knows how a vacation works. “For how long?”

“A week, I think.”

“Where are we going?”

“Destiny Islands!” Ventus says, rolling over to face Vanitas. “Now will you stop asking questions and just say yes?”

Vanitas glances at Ventus before he looks at the sky again, arms folded beneath his head. “Isn’t that a tourist trap? I don’t want to deal with crowds.”

Ventus sits up and scoots a little closer, practically looming over Vanitas. “Well, yeah, it’s summer, so there’ll be a lot of people,” he says. “But I think it’ll still be a lot of fun. Just trust me!”

While Vanitas does a lot of the things Ventus asks him to lately, he still hesitates on this one, as it’s quite a lot different to go all the way to a different world and be around tons of people at once. Thinking on it, he chews at his lip and looks between the clouds and Ventus’s face. 

“If you don’t come, then we won’t see each other for a whole week,” Ventus continues. “Please?”

Well, damnit. The two of them have never gone that long without seeing each other during the time Vanitas has been at the Land of Departure. Honestly, it sounds a little excruciating to Vanitas—he’s gotten so used to having Ventus by his side, and he doesn’t want to feel the loneliness he experienced in the Badlands ever again.

“Okay. Fine,” he says, his gaze going to a cloud that looks sort of like a bear. “Now shut up and lay down with me.”

Ventus beams at him and lays down to tuck into his side, and Vanitas thinks about how far they’ve come and how far they’ve yet to go.  
  


* * *

  
The four of them leave for Destiny Islands three days later, early in the morning so that they’ll have most of the day to spend there however they want. Vanitas is still not entirely sure of it, but the excitement all over Ventus’s face is enough to reel him in and keep him from backing out at the last second. 

They’re staying at some nice hotel that’s fancier than any place Vanitas has ever stayed. They have two connected rooms, each with a double bed—which Vanitas doesn’t mind, because he and Ventus have fallen asleep side-by-side on more occasions than he can count. Neither of them has said it, but Vanitas knows that they both sleep better when they’re close to each other for some reason.

Once they’ve gotten their bags and everything settled in at the hotel, they head down to the shore for a day at the beach. This isn’t the first time Vanitas has seen the ocean, but this is the first time he’s going to be there like any other normal person—to relax. That’s less of a foreign concept nowadays, though.

After getting their umbrellas set up and towels laid out, Vanitas sits down in the shade as he watches all the activity on the beach—swimming, talking, eating, playing games. Everyone around them seems so happy and carefree, and it’s _almost_ infectious. Vanitas doesn’t know if he’s ever been carefree in his life, but at least he’s not wound up tight right now.

“I’m gonna go swim!” Ventus says pretty much as soon as everyone gets settled down, practically bouncing on his feet. He doesn’t wait for an answer before he’s gone, and Vanitas has to hide a smile as he shakes his head.

Soon, Aqua and Terra go to join Ventus in the water, and Vanitas is left alone with their stuff. He doesn’t mind it, as it gives him an opportunity to soak in the novelty of this experience, the sounds and the feelings and the sight of everything around him.

But of course, it’s not long before Vanitas hears his name being called by a voice he’s very used to. “Hey, Vanitas!” Ventus hollers from where he’s waist-deep in the ocean. “Come get in the water with us!”

Instead of yelling back, Vanitas just rolls his eyes and lays down under the shade of the umbrella—but he shouldn’t have expected that to end there. Soon enough, Ventus is standing over him, dripping a little. “Vanitas,” he says, almost a whine. “What’s the point of the beach if you’re not even going to go in the water?”

“I’m fine like this. You told me we’re coming here to relax, and that’s what I’m doing.”

Ventus gives him a scathing look. “Just try it. Have I ever led you wrong?”

He really hasn’t, Vanitas has to admit. None of the things he’s wanted Vanitas to do have ever actually hurt him, and they usually end up at least a little enjoyable. And Ventus is right—if he’s at the beach, maybe he _should_ get the full experience.

When Ventus holds out his hand, he sighs and takes it. Once they reach the water, Ventus lets go of his hand, Vanitas holding onto his for a few seconds longer, and he starts to wade in. “Alright, just follow me!”

Vanitas makes a face at the water, but he still gingerly steps in until it’s lapping at his ankles, and stares down at it. This deep, he doesn’t feel much of anything about it, but at the very least, it’s okay. It’s not unpleasant. And so, with even needing more of Ventus’s urging, he walks a little further in, to his calves. Then, to his knees, to his thighs, until he’s waist-deep in the water without even realizing it.

“Hey!” Ventus says, his eyes bright. “You did it! See, it’s not that bad!”

Vanitas shrugs, not wanting to outright admit that he’s right, and then a thought occurs to him. “I don’t know if I can actually swim.”

“Oh…” Ventus pauses and makes a face. “I guess I assumed you’d be able to since I can. Maybe you didn’t forget, though—at least try it!”

Vanitas is a lot more skeptical about doing something that could possibly result in him drowning, but as he thinks on it, he feels like he knows how to swim. Maybe it’s just one of those things you can’t unlearn once you’ve learned, if the younger, whole Ventus ever did so.

Well, this won’t be the most reckless thing he’s ever done by far. With Ventus hovering at his elbow, he wades out even further until the water is at his armpits, and then he lifts his feet off the bottom to let himself float.

And, it turns out, he _can_ swim—he’s not graceful at it by any means, but it comes to him enough that he can keep himself afloat and move around, which is good enough for him. It’s good enough for Ventus, too, who happily paddles around with him.

Eventually they get into a splashing fight and end up trying to dunk each other underwater—of course, Vanitas wins because he always has the advantage in hand-to-hand combat. Ventus whines and complains when he gets water up his nose, and Vanitas just laughs at him until Ventus finally manages to shove him underwater.

It’s so… normal. When Vanitas pauses and looks at the other people playing in the ocean, he can see kids and teenagers acting the exact same way he and Ventus are. If anyone looked at them, they wouldn’t know what Vanitas had been through—they wouldn’t know that he and the person next to him are of the same heart, that one helped destroy and one helped save. They’d only see two boys, perhaps a bit closer than normal, and wouldn’t think twice about it.

He almost feels normal when he lifts Ventus atop his shoulders, mirroring Aqua on top of Terra’s so that they can play some dumb game. Honestly, he never would’ve expected the two of them to play with Ventus like _this_ , kicking and shoving and grabbing as they try to topple each other over. It’s insanely stupid and a challenge when Vanitas is facing someone as strong as Terra, but he finds himself laughing, even when he and Ventus pop out of the water after they’re knocked down first.

Ventus screams with laughter as Vanitas throws him in the water when he won’t stop insisting Vanitas put him on his shoulders again. “More!” he demands as he swims up to Vanitas, and Vanitas indulges him because Ventus weighs about as much as a bunch of grapes and it’s actually fun to do this.

For the rest of the day, there’s eating and swimming and playing in the sand and more swimming. Vanitas feels entirely water-logged when he emerges from the water for a last time, so he drags his towel out under the sun so that he can sit there and dry off. It’s hot and much too bright, even as the sun is gradually getting lower, but at the same time it feels peaceful to bask like that.

It’s a little longer before Ventus comes back to where Vanitas is sitting, Aqua and Terra following as they start to pack up their things. “Terra and Aqua are heading in, but I want to go for a walk,” Ventus says to him as he wipes off his face and hands. “Come with?”

That’s simple enough for Vanitas. “Yeah,” he says, stretching as he stands up. They help pack up everything, and he and Ventus watch the two of them head off the beach before he takes Ventus’s hand.

As they start to walk down the shoreline, Vanitas thinks he can feel people’s eyes prickling at the back of his neck, but he does his best to ignore them. He still doesn’t like being scrutinized this closely, but the important thing is that he’s not here for them—he’s here for Ventus. Because Ventus asked him to. And he’s not going to let Ventus walk alone just because people might be staring at him.

“So,” Ventus says after they’ve been walking for a few minutes, “how are you liking the beach so far?”

Vanitas thinks on it a moment and shrugs. “There are so many people. And it’s so humid. And the sand gets everywhere.” He looks down at their feet as they continue on, their toes digging in the sand with every footstep. A wave washes over the shore and covers their feet, delightfully cold, and he shrugs again. “It’s okay.”

Ventus laughs, sounding light and free. “So you’re having a great time,” he replies, bumping Vanitas with his hip. “I wasn’t sure about the crowds and everything for you, but I thought you might like the rest of it.”

Vanitas can only roll his eyes, still looking down. “I can deal with crowds most of the time now. I just think they’re annoying.”

“That’s good,” Ventus says, encouraging. “We don’t have to be in the crowds all the time. I have some ideas for stuff to do later, just the two of us.”

“And you’re not going to tell me, are you,” Vanitas says flatly as he glances over at Ventus to see the sly grin on his face.

“And I’m not going to tell you,” Ventus chirps, lightly swinging their hands between them. “Don’t worry. It’ll be a good time.”

Vanitas definitely could nag him about it, but he knows Ventus will just hold it over his head even if he does. He can be patient, though—he can wait, like he waited years to be reunited. “Okay.”

Since it’s getting later in the day, the sun dipping lower and lower, people are gradually leaving the beach, which leaves Vanitas more relaxed. He prefers to be alone with Ventus so he can feel the connection between them even more strongly. They walk in silence for a while, and Vanitas is content as Ventus winds their fingers together.

Once they’ve made it much further down the beach, Vanitas suddenly pauses and turns to the ocean, walking in far enough for the water to cover his feet fully, Ventus following. They stand there, looking at the sun, and again—Vanitas feels something deep in his chest. 

The water is cold on his feet, the sun warm on his skin. The sounds of flowing water, seagulls overhead, and people quietly talking wash over him. Ventus is quiet at his side, and Vanitas wonders if all of this makes him feel the same way. He hopes it does. 

He opens his mouth—then hesitates. Tries again, and hesitates a little more. He fidgets where they stand until Vanitas looks sideways at him, and then he finally speaks, quiet and low. “Thank you.”

When he looks at Ventus, Ventus seems genuinely surprised, his eyes a little wide. “What for?”

Saying those two words was hard enough, and elaborating more is almost asking too much. He owes Ventus at least a little, though, after all Ventus has done for him, never deterred no matter how awful and difficult Vanitas has tried to be. “Just… for everything,” is the most he can offer right now.

Thankfully, Ventus understands, like he always does now. “Of course,” he says softly, squeezing Vanitas’s hand reassuringly. “You’re the other half of my heart. I’d do anything for you, Vanitas.”

Closing his eyes, Vanitas tilts his head back and breathes in the smell of the ocean air. Words like those from Ventus still strike him as hard as the first time he heard them, and he’s sure he’ll never get tired of them. He can’t imagine getting tired of anything about Ventus now. “I don’t deserve it,” he says quietly, “but I’m still glad you would.”

Ventus grabs Vanitas’s other hand and makes him turn towards him. “You _do_ deserve it,” he forcefully insists, so much so that it makes Vanitas open his eyes. “I know you don’t think so, but I believe you do. And I’ll keep giving you everything until you realize you do.”

“That’s going to take a while.”

“I know. I’m going to be here for a while, Vanitas,” Ventus says like it’s obvious—and maybe it is. “I don’t intend for us to be separated ever again. Other halves… That’s forever, you know?”

Vanitas has to laugh at the cheesiness, shaking his head. It makes his heart feel lighter, though, to know that Ventus wants to be by his side forever. It’s what a younger Vanitas needed desperately, and what an older Vanitas still needs. The concept of forever can’t be encapsulated, but he wants it. “Forever,” he echoes. “You sure?”

“Yeah.” Ventus’s face is soft, but his grip is firm. “You’re not getting rid of me now. Get used to it.”

“Okay, okay. I get it, Ventus,” Vanitas says, laughing again. He thinks his cheeks must be sunburnt by how warm they feel. “Now stop being a sap and let’s go back before Terra and Aqua send out a search party.”

Ventus nods and lets go of one hand so that they can turn around and head back the way they came, still side-by-side. “I have something to show you when we have a free evening this week,” he says, his voice hopeful. “I think you’ll like it.”

And Vanitas already knows he will. He hums and tightens his grip on Ventus’s hand, no more words needed to settle what’s between them right now—that’s being saved for later, when their hearts are finally ready for it.


	7. Destiny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > Vanitas flickers his gaze from Ventus’s eyes down to his lips and realizes that he never had a chance, not as long as Ventus is involved. “Okay.”
>> 
>> “Thank you,” Ventus says, his touch lingering on Vanitas’s face as he slides his fingers along the line of his jaw. When he lets go, Vanitas feels a loss and almost seeks out that warmth again.
> 
> For the first time, Vanitas gets the thing he's needed most all along.
> 
> _Day 7: Destiny_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dayyyy 7! i hope the buildup all week is worth it for this :)
> 
> and with this, vanven week is over! this year i did things quite a bit differently and it makes me happy it's been so well received! thank you all for the comments and kudos and see you next time <3

Most of their week is filled up with activities. They make it down to the beach for at least a few hours every single day, and then there’s always something else, some tourist attraction to visit or some place to eat or some person to spend time with. A good portion of it is tiring to Vanitas, but it doesn’t feel quite as annoying when Ventus is by his side, holding his hand and ready to take him away if need be.

It isn’t until late in the week that they finally have time totally free, Terra and Aqua choosing to go do something else together. It’s a relief, because although Vanitas is glad he at least gets to see Ventus on this trip, it means that they get almost no alone time that’s not spent sleeping.

With the afternoon and evening before them, that leaves Ventus to pull Vanitas along with him—though Vanitas doesn’t need to be dragged around so much anymore.

That day, not too long before the sun will begin its descent, Ventus brings Vanitas down to the shoreline, where there are a few canoes sitting, tied up to a dock. “You remember the play island?” he asks Vanitas, bending down to unwind the rope. “I wanted to go there and watch the sunset.”

Vanitas hesitates a little as he steps into the canoe. He hasn’t been over there for over a decade, when he taunted Ventus there to urge him to come to the final battle. He doesn’t exactly have fond memories of the place and doesn’t expect Ventus to either—but he trusts him. If Ventus doesn’t think it’ll be that bad, then maybe it won’t be.

“Sure,” he finally says, grabbing the oars as Ventus hops in the canoe. When Ventus smiles at him, he pushes down any reservations and helps them set off.

It doesn’t take them too long to make it to the island with Vanitas doing the rowing, and soon they’re standing on the dock once they’ve tied the canoe off to make sure it won’t float away. At least the play island is quiet and private, so that means Vanitas won’t have to worry about any watching eyes while he and Ventus sit together. The only sounds here are seagulls overheard, bugs chirping in the plants, and waves lapping against the shore—it’s peaceful, if not a little warped by memories.

Ventus has them walk across the island and over a bridge, until they’re on the smaller island with a strangely bent tree. Standing there, Ventus smooths his hand over the trunk of it and speaks. “This is where I was when Sora connected with my heart,” he says, his brows furrowed. “And with you, too.”

This might’ve been Ventus’s final resting place, if it hadn’t been for Sora. Ventus could’ve died right here, and then Vanitas would’ve had nothing to live for in the end. Without Ventus, he probably would’ve been lost forever, instead of ending up here, something remarkably close to happy. 

“I’m glad he saved you,” Vanitas says, fighting down the sense of grief that’s always lingering.

Ventus’s smile is a little pained, but he nods and squeezes Vanitas’s hand. “I am, too. Neither of us would’ve had a second chance without him. And now we can be here together.”

“Together,” Vanitas echoes.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to get depressing,” Ventus says, shaking his head like he’s shaking the mood off. “That’s not why we’re here. Come sit with me.”

Ventus tries to hop up on the tree, so Vanitas picks him up by the waist and lifts him up so that he can get on there more easily before he follows himself. Sitting like this, they’ll be perfectly facing the sun as it sets, not a single thing in the distance obstructing their view.

“See the fruit?” Ventus nudges Vanitas with his elbow as he points up at the star-shaped fruits nestled high in the tree. “It’s called a paopu fruit. The wayfinders Aqua made for the three of us are based off of it, actually,” he explains. “Do you know the legend around it?”

The paopu sounds somewhat familiar to Vanitas, but he’s probably only heard about it in passing, so he doesn’t actually know whatever story there is behind it. “Nope.”

“The legend says that if two people share a paopu fruit, their destinies will be tied together, and they’ll always be in each other’s lives.” Ventus almost has stars in his eyes as he speaks, which is annoyingly endearing.

“Aren’t legends supposed to be longer than that?”

Ventus makes a face at him. “That’s not the point! Just—” He groans and shakes his head as he stands up on the trunk of the tree. On his tiptoes, he nearly slips and falls off, Vanitas about to scramble to catch him, but he manages to yank one of the fruits off the tree before sitting back down. “Here.”

Vanitas takes the fruit when it’s handed to him and gives it—and then Ventus—a weird look. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, come on, Vanitas. It’s for us, obviously.”

“That’s stupid.” Vanitas hands it back to Ventus. “Our fates are already intertwined. A stupid fruit isn’t going to mean anything compared to that.”

Ventus grumbles something Vanitas can’t make out under his breath and runs a hand through his hair, obviously exasperated. “Okay, yes, I know we’re already tied together, but—it’s symbolic, you know?” Vanitas grunts, and Ventus reaches out to touch his cheek. “Just trust me,” he says softly. “This is important to me.”

Maybe Vanitas doesn’t understand what some legend can have on the very essence of their dual existence, but the look on Ventus’s face is just a little different from any other one Vanitas has seen him wear. It’s sincere and it’s tender and it’s—wanting, asking for something that Vanitas _can_ give. 

Rubbing his thumb delicately across his cheek, Ventus smiles and tilts his head. “Please?”

Vanitas flickers his gaze from Ventus’s eyes down to his lips and realizes that he never had a chance, not as long as Ventus is involved. “Okay.”

“Thank you,” Ventus says, his touch lingering on Vanitas’s face as he slides his fingers along the line of his jaw. When he lets go, Vanitas feels a loss and almost seeks out that warmth again.

There’s something terribly intimate about the way Ventus holds the paopu up to his mouth, waiting for him to take a bite. Again, Vanitas feels sunburnt heat flood across his cheeks, and he wraps one hand around Ventus’s wrist as he offers him the paopu. It almost feels like he should say something, but he knows he’ll choke on the words if he does, so he just closes his eyes and takes a bite.

The skin is tough and the taste is almost too sweet, but he doesn’t spit it out on the ground because he knows Ventus will get hurt. Once he swallows it down, he takes the paopu from Ventus without prompting and then offers it to him in the same way.

Ventus sets one hand on Vanitas’s knee and leans in to take his own bite, eyes closed and cheeks also looking rather sunburnt. As he pulls away and swallows, Vanitas follows the column of his throat with his eyes and finds himself swallowing nothing.

“There,” Ventus says, squeezing Vanitas’s knee. “Now we’re really stuck together.”

Vanitas still thinks the legend is mostly stupid, but maybe Ventus’s sentimentality is getting to him a little after all these months, because the symbolism finally hits him and he barely knows what to say. “Yeah,” he answers quietly. “We are.”

Ventus scoots a little closer and leans his head on Vanitas’s shoulder, and Vanitas pauses to try to come up with the right words, rolling the rest of the fruit over in his hands. Something inside him is aching, but it’s almost in a good way—it’s an appetent feeling, consuming every little thing Ventus offers him, and this moment is nearly enough to sate the hunger.

“Did you make all of us come all the way out to the Destiny Islands just for this?” he asks, a trace of a smile on his face.

“Maybe,” Ventus says, having the grace to look a little sheepish about it. “We wanted to go on a trip somewhere anyway, so I just happened to suggest here, and…” He shrugs and chuckles.

Vanitas hums, idly plucking at the leaf on top of the fruit. “Making a second connection was that important to you?”

“Of course it is. Because I love you, Vanitas. I’ve been waiting for you to notice.”

Vanitas doesn’t even realize he let go of the paopu until he hears the sound of it hitting the ground. At first, he can’t even process Ventus dropping something like that on him so abruptly and so casually. Ventus didn’t stutter or stumble over his words—he said it with a conviction that Vanitas can barely fathom.

When Vanitas finally looks over at him, Ventus looks so pleased that he could _really_ sock him in the mouth, but he’s too shocked to give it a second thought. “What? Since when?”

“Hm…” Ventus tilts his head from side to side, obviously thinking hard about it. “I don’t know. Maybe forever?” he says, which is literally the opposite of helpful. “I think a part of me has loved you since we were torn apart, if a heart can love a piece of itself. If we’ve always been meant to be together again, then isn’t love just the natural next step?”

As confused as he is, Vanitas can’t help but wrinkle his nose. “That’s sappy, even for you.”

“Oh, shut up!” Ventus huffs and smacks him on the arm with a pointed look. “You _asked_. But besides, haven’t you noticed how I touch you all the time?”

Vanitas looks down at Ventus’s hand where it’s resting on his leg, so small compared to his own, and thinks: of all the times Ventus tugged him somewhere by his hand, the times Ventus rubbed his back when he was upset, the times Ventus draped his legs over his own as they rested. Hands on the small of his back, on his shoulders, and on his hips and his hair and full-bodied whenever Ventus hugged him, and—

“Oh,” Vanitas says, like he’s finally experiencing a thought for the first time in his life. “That.”

“That,” Ventus repeats, sounding like he’s five milliseconds away from bursting into laughter. “I think the only way I could’ve been more obvious is if I just went ahead and kissed you. I almost did all the time.”

“Why didn’t you?” Vanitas asks, almost accusatory, which is probably one of the last things he’d expected to come out of his mouth.

“‘Cause you would’ve gotten freaked out if I did too soon, and then all that work would’ve been for nothing.”

Vanitas resents the way Ventus is talking about him like a rehabilitated cat, but he can’t exactly deny his words—it took him long enough to be even able to occupy the same room as Ventus, let alone hold a conversation with him or touch him. A kiss too early would’ve scared him off to another world entirely. 

It chokes him up a little to think about how Ventus wouldn’t do something like that without knowing he wanted it—he used to have no agency, no goals that were his own, and spent his life doing what Xehanort made him do, with force or without. It wasn’t until he got to the Land of Departure that he got to have real choices in what he does, and what he has with Ventus is something he chooses to let happen every single day. 

And it’s something he can choose right now.

“Oh,” he says again. Heat crawls up the back of his neck, and he debates just upping and leaving so that he doesn’t have to deal with the coming embarrassment of this situation. The only reason he doesn’t do that, though, is because he realizes this is something he might want even if he didn’t know it. 

He licks his lips and glances at the hand still on his knee, still trying to wrap his head around everything. “Does… does that mean you’re going to kiss me?”

He looks back up at Ventus when Ventus leans in closer, wondering if this is it. Ventus pauses and his smile suddenly turns much more mischievous. “Do you _want_ me to kiss you, Vanitas?” he asks. “Come on. Say it to me.”

Alright, tender moment be damned. Vanitas is absolutely not going to be taunted about this, so he abruptly stands up and scoops Ventus into his arms, tiny hands, smug face, and all, and then he carries him over to the edge of the small island. And before Ventus can say a single word more, Vanitas unceremoniously tosses him into the water.

Vanitas has had quite a lot of practice with throwing Ventus around lately, so Ventus lands an impressive distance out. Spluttering, he emerges from the ocean seconds later, that sly grin nowhere to be seen. “You’re lucky I’m in love with you, you stupid asshole!” he hollers, swimming back over.

“Language, Ventus,” Vanitas taunts, his heart racing at Ventus’s words. Though he seems collected, inside he’s dealing with so many different emotions at once, some familiar and some unfamiliar and many scary. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know if he can hide this turmoil from Ventus; Ventus may not be able to feel Vanitas’s heart in the way Vanitas does his, but he can sense it somehow in some startling clarity. Sometimes Vanitas can’t stand it.

Ventus continues to mutter curses under his breath as he grabs the ladder and heaves himself back up on the small island, dripping wet. “ _You_ ,” he says emphatically, “are the most insufferable person I’ve ever met in my life, and I’m going to kiss you now.”

Actually, maybe it’s kind of nice when Ventus knows what Vanitas wants and won’t say _and_ he goes ahead and does it (though preferably without the snark). Vanitas wobbles on his feet as Ventus abruptly grabs his face with both hands and presses their lips together, damp and salty. Caught off guard, Vanitas reflexively reaches up to grab Ventus’s wrists like he’s going to rip his hands away—but he doesn’t. All he does is hold on when Ventus draws away for breath and moves right back in, demanding of Vanitas to a degree he’s never been before.

Vanitas doesn’t exactly get the cue to kiss back until Ventus slides one hand to the back of his neck and tilts his head with the other, trying to slot their lips together in a way that feels less clumsy. Vanitas doesn’t know what he’s doing in even the slightest capacity, so all he can do is follow Ventus’s lead, like he’s been doing for his whole life—but never in such a pleasant way.

When Ventus impatiently grabs Vanitas’s hands and sets them on his own waist, Vanitas only acquiesces, curling his fingers into the fabric of his shirt. A hand at the small of his back draws him closer and parted lips beckon him in, until everything else becomes insignificant.

The sky is dark and the stars are bright by the time they finally pause for more than three seconds, panting quietly. Sitting against the base of the paopu tree, Ventus in his lap, their foreheads pressed together, Vanitas thinks he has to be on another plane of existence altogether.

“Who taught you to kiss like that?” is the first thing he manages to say, still breathless.

Ventus laughs and brushes their noses together. “My heart, I guess. I just kinda—went for it.”

“No kidding,” Vanitas mutters, pressing his fingertips to his lips, which are still tingling and don’t show signs of stopping anytime soon. 

Ventus shrugs, arching into Vanitas as he stretches. “I’ve been waiting for months, stupid. Can you really blame me?”

“Yes,” Vanitas says flatly, and he yelps when Ventus pinches his side.

“Stop ruining the moment,” Ventus says with a sigh, wrapping his arms back around Vanitas’s shoulders. He’s silent for a little, and Vanitas soaks in how small the space between them finally is. Finally, he speaks again. “I love you, you know. I really, really do.”

Vanitas has more time to process the sentiment now, and he realizes how light it makes him feel. In a way, it makes him feel heavy, weighing him down with reminders of their past, but it’s also freeing to have Ventus love him. In all honesty, Vanitas knows he doesn’t deserve to have someone love him—he’s tried to do unspeakable things to so many people, and he can’t reverse the damage he caused—but now that he knows it’s what Ventus feels, he knows he’d do anything to keep it.

“I know,” Vanitas whispers, holding Ventus more tightly, like something out there is going to try to take him away now that things are good. “Thank you.”

Ventus’s laugh is fond, so fond, and Vanitas feels like he’s melting. “You don’t need to thank me for loving you,” he says back. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever felt. I could live off it.”

Vanitas could easily make another quip about Ventus being too damn sappy, but he’s feeling sentimental himself—his heart truly is a traitor. 

“You mean the worlds to me. All of them, in every universe,” he says, so hushed that he’s barely speaking. He prays that Ventus knows what he means without saying it, because his heart isn’t entirely untangled and he can’t yet offer everything he’d like to.

Again, Ventus kisses him, slow and sweet, and it’s obvious he understands the unspoken words perfectly. “Me, too,” he murmurs back. “I’d do anything for you. Just ask.”

“Stay. That’s it.” He holds Ventus’s face, as tenderly as his calloused hands can manage, and kisses him once more, now that he’s allowed. “Stay with me and don’t give up on me.”

“Never,” Ventus says with the same conviction as before. “I’ll never give up on you. I never have.”

“Promise?”

“Promise with my whole heart. With my whole soul.”

When Ventus tips Vanitas’s head back and kisses him more gently than ever, Vanitas feels whole, unbroken, like this is how it’s been meant to be all along. He doesn’t need to miss Ventus when Ventus is so close to his heart, and he doesn’t need to hate him ever again.

This, here, is what Vanitas’s heart has been howling for ever since they were split apart, and finally the scream fades into a soft whisper, indiscernible from all the other murmurs inside him. 

“I love you, Vanitas,” Ventus breathes out against his lips, almost as reverent as a prayer. “Now and forever.”

“Now and forever,” Vanitas echoes, words more true than anything he’s ever said. “Now and forever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes i know kh3 establishes that two people share two paopu fruits but i still think that's stupid and they should share one. thank you


End file.
